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Charles Fuller's Zooman and the Sign Closes NEC Season
Signature rounds out its celebration of the historic Negro Ensemble Company with Charles Fuller's Zooman and the Sign. The play opened at Theatre Four in December 1980 under the direction of Douglas Turner Ward with the following cast: Alvin Alexis, Mary Alice, Ray Aranha, Terrance Terry Ellis, Giancarlo Esposito, Frances Foster, Carl Gordon, Steven A. Jones, and Carol Lynn Maillard. Rodney J. Lucas was the set designer, Judy Dearing the costume designer, Shirley Prendergast the lighting designer, and Clinton Turner Davis the production stage manager. Mr. Fuller received an Obie Award for Playwriting and Mr. Esposito an Obie Award for his performance as Zooman.
Stephen McKinley Henderson directs the Signature production and heads a creative team of new and returning artists. Signature audiences will remember Henderson from the 2006-2007 August Wilson Series during which he appeared in both Seven Guitars and King Hedley II. In addition, Henderson's history with Zooman extends back to 1994 when he appeared in a revival of the play at New York's Second Stage Theatre. Signature also welcomes the return of cast member Lynda Gravatt (August Wilson's King Hedley II), set designer Shaun Motley (Signature's most recent production, Samm-Art Williams' Home), lighting designer Matthew Frey (Maria Irene Fornes' Letters from Cuba), and sound designer Robert Kaplowitz (Urban Zulu Mambo, a tribute to Adrienne Kennedy and Lanford Wilson's Burn This). Costume designer Katherine Roth makes her Signature debut as do cast members Ron Canada, Amari Cheatom, Rosalyn Coleman, W. Tré Davis, Peter Jay Fernandez, Eugene Jones, Jamal Mallory-McCree, Evan Parke, and Portia.
Signature welcomes these new and returning artists as our season-long tribute to the NEC comes to a close.
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