LOU BELLAMY (DIRECTOR & PRODUCER) is the founder and artistic director of Penumbra Theatre. Under his leadership, Penumbra has produced 23 world premieres, including August Wilson's first professional production, and is proud to have produced more of Mr. Wilson's plays than any theater in the world. Mr. Bellamy is an OBIE Award-winning director, an accomplished actor, and sought-after scholar. He has been a member of the University of Minnesota's faculty for 32 years and is currently appointed to the rank of associate professor in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance.  Recent directing credits include Black Pearl Sings!, Radio Golf, Fences and The Piano Lesson at Penumbra, A Raisin in the Sun and Gem of the Ocean, Penumbra productions staged at the Guthrie, Two Trains Running at the Signature Theatre in New York, Jitney at Kansas City Repertory Theatre and Arizona Theatre Company, and the staged reading of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Kennedy Center.

DOMINIC TAYLOR (ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR) is a director, playwright and the head of Penumbra's OKRA New Play Development Program. Most recently, Mr. Taylor directed Black Nativity: A Season for Change at Penumbra. Other select directing credits include the new opera Fresh Faust at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, The Negroes Burial Ground at the Kitchen, N.Y.C., Uppa Creek at Dixon Place, and Ride The Rhythm in the Hip-Hop Theatre Festival. He is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota where he has directed The Wiz, Night Train To Bolina and this spring will direct Execution of Justice. Mr. Taylor has worked with Crossroads Theater, Rites and Reasons Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, The Public Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, and Ensemble Studio Theatre, among others. He is an alumni member of New Dramatists and holds a Bachelor's and a Master of Fine Arts Degree from Brown University.

DANA YEATON (Playwright) is the recipient of the “New Voice in American Theatre” award from the William Inge Theatre Festival. His short play Helen At Risk won the Heideman Award from the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville and his full-length drama Mad River Rising received the Moss Hart Award. For ten years he was playwright-in-residence at Vermont Stage Company, which produced his original plays JUMP CUT, Mad River Rising and The Big Random. They also premiered his adaptation of Midwives, Chris Bohjalian’s New York Times best-selling novel. Midwives has been produced in North Carolina, Arizona, Tennessee, New Hampshire, and, most recently, at Round House Theatre in Bethesda, MD. He was founding director of Vermont Young Playwrights Project, and of the Addison Repertory Theatre, a full-day, vocational theatre program for high school students. Dana lives with his wife, Frankie, in Vermont and teaches at Middlebury College.

RONALD ALOIS SCHULTZ (Stage Manager) has been working as an actor, stage manager, production assistant, and sound board operator in the Twin Cities since 1992. A company member of Penumbra Theatre, Ron has worked on over 60 productions at Penumbra including Jitney, Stage Directions, and the 2006 production of Ain’t Misbehavin’. He has also worked on productions at Mixed Blood, Illusion, Eye of the Storm, Fitzgerald, Pantages, Frank, and Alchemy theatres. Ron was the company manager of Pillsbury House Theatre’s touring production Breaking Ice in 2003 and 2004 and was the assistant stage manager for the Carlson Honors 2005 Awards for the Carlson Company at the State Theatre. He provided technical support for Roxanne Wallace’s Evolution of a Soul Sista at Patrick’s Cabaret and designed the set for Riff Raff at Pillsbury House (2006). Ron is currently pursuing his B.A. in Social Science and his Secondary Teacher Licensure at Metropolitan State University.

JAMES T. ALFRED (Cory) recently appeared at Penumbra in REDSHIRTS. He also performed in Penumbra's co-production, with Kansas City Rep and Arizona Theatre Company, of August Wilson's Jitney. Other credits include To Kill a Mockingbird at Kansas City Rep and Arizona Theatre Company, Conversations on a Dirt Road and Killing Me Softly at the ETA Creative Arts Foundation in Chicago, Sundown Names at the Chicago Theatre Company, and Romeo and Juliet at the American Repertory Theatre. Film and television credits include Fox's Prison Break and the film One Week. He is a graduate of the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University, and he holds a Master of Fine Arts in acting from the Moscow Art Theatre School in Russia.

JAMES CRAVEN (ABE) is a long-time Penumbra Theatre company member. Select credits at Penumbra include Fences, The Piano Lesson, Penumbra's production of Gem of the Ocean presented at the Guthrie Theater, Get Ready, Zooman and the Sign, Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers and REDSHIRTS, co-produced with Round House Theatre. He also performed at Kansas City Repertory Theater and Arizona Theater Company in their joint production of Jitney. James is a 2005 recipient of the Spenser Cherashore Fund and was awarded a 2007 McKnight Fellowship.

KIMBERLY GILBERT (Tori) hails from Washington, D.C., and this performance marks her Twin Cities debut. In D.C., she has performed in Nutshell in the Capital Fringe Festival, Cardenio Found with Taffety Punk Theatre Company, and Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. She received the 2007 Helen Hayes Lead Actress Nomination for her role as “Brenda-Marie” in Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis. Kimberly is a company member with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. She is also a company member with Taffety Punk Theatre Company. She received an MFA at the Academy For Classical Acting with the Shakespeare Theatre Company at George Washington University.

CEDRIC MAYS (Citizen Barlow) recently performed in Penumbra's production of REDSHIRTS. Other credits include starring in Blue/Orange as Christopher, directed by Jeremy Skidmore, and Insurrection: Holding History as T.J., directed by Timothy Douglas, both at Theater Alliance in Washington, D.C.

WILL SALLEE (Dale Mayo) is making his Penumbra Theatre Company debut in REDSHIRTS. A graduate from Hamline University in St. Paul, he performed in several main stage productions there including The Duchess of Malfi, Into the Woods, and Until Someone Wakes Up.

KIMBERLY SCHRAF (Dr. Audrey Yantz) welcomes this opportunity to collaborate with Penumbra Theatre and take in St. Paul at the same time. At home, in Washington, D.C., she has been a proud member of that vibrant theatre community for over twenty years. Her most recent productions have been Going to St. Ives at Everyman Theatre, Baltimore; A Prayer for Owen Meany at Round House Theatre, Bethesda; and productions of Frozen and Crestfall at The Studio Theatre. In addition, she has worked at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Arena Stage, Ford’s Theatre, the Kennedy Center, and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Television appearances include Homicide: Life on the Streets. She narrates books on tape and is a graduate of St. John’s College, Annapolis.

REGINA MARIE WILLIAMS (Dr. Charlene Bigelow) most recently performed in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill at The Milwaukee Rep’s Stackner. She has performed at the Guthrie in The Falls, The People’s Temple, She Loves Me, Oedipus, Crowns and Yellowman, a Guthrie/Mixed Blood Theater co-production, directed by Marion McClinton. Productions at Mixed Blood include Two Queens One Castle and The Dance on Widow’s Row. As a company member of Penumbra Theatre, she has been seen in Seven Guitars, Two Trains Running, Love Song for Ms Lydia, Louie and Ophelia and more. Her performance as Dinah in Penumbra’s Dinah Was prompted her to record “Regina is…the songs of Dinah Washington,” produced by Sanford Moore of Moore by Four. Her most recent CD, “Feel the Spirit,” was co-produced with Gary Hines of the Grammy Award-winning Sounds of Blackness of which she is a former member. Regina is a McKnight Theater Artist of the Year 2006-2007.

AHANTI YOUNG (Curtis Combs) is an actor, percussionist, and spoken word artist. His professional theater experiences date back to the early 1990s, where he made his debut on the Penumbra Theatre stage in the production of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Ahanti has been seen in several Penumbra productions since, including The Day The Bronx Died, Geneva Cottrell - Waiting for the Dog to Die, Jitney, Black Eagles, Darker Face of The Earth, Two Trains Running and most recently Zooman and the Sign. Other venues include Alchemy Theater, African American Heritage Ensemble (international), Ten Thousand Things Theater, The Great American History Theatre, Sirius B Artist Collective and the Guthrie Theater. More recent ventures have led Ahanti to Musical/Theatrical/ Poetic artist collective, Edupoetic Enterbrainment (EPE) and Critical Interdisciplinary Collaborative, In The Belly. Ahanti is also a freelance instructor and has several affiliations with schools, programs and community centers throughout Minnesota.

C. LANCE BROCKMAN (SCENIC DESIGNER) is a faculty member of the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Minnesota. With this production, he has designed seven shows for Penumbra including On the Open Road, Rollin' on the T.O.B.A., Ain't Misbehavin', REDSHIRTS, Get Ready and Fences. Mr. Brockman's research interest is in historic scenic painting used to create illusionary scenery for opera houses, vaudeville and fraternal stages. He teaches master classes on the historical painting methods utilized by scenic artists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century at universities across the country.

MARTIN GWINUP (SOUND & VIDEO DESIGNER) is an associate professor in the Theatre Arts and Dance Department at the University of Minnesota. He teaches audio and video technology, design and production. He has also worked in the Twin Cities area as a freelance sound and video designer and technician for 18 years. Martin has worked for the Frank Theatre, History Theatre, Children's Theatre Company, Cricket Theatre and Eye of the Storm. Select design credits at Penumbra include REDSHIRTS, Get Ready, Blue, Black Nativity - A Celebration of Family, A Celebration for the Soul... Testify! and Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers.

MICHELLE HABECK (LIGHTING DESIGNER) has designed for Penumbra Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Baltimore's CenterStage, and Alliance Theatre, among others. She has worked as associate to Tony Award-winning designer Donald Holder on Julie Taymor's Opera Grendel; Gem of the Ocean at the Goodman Theatre and Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles; and on Broadway stage plays and musicals including Movin' Out, King Hedley II and The Boy From Oz. Ms. Habeck was honored with the National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Career Development Grant for 2003-04. She is on the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Theatre and Dance.

MATHEW J. LeFEBVRE (COSTUME DESIGNER) has designed costumes for several Penumbra Theatre productions including Fences, REDSHIRTS, Get Ready, Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers, On the Open Road, Black Eagles, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Jitney, and both Scenery and Costumes for Gem of the Ocean. Off Broadway credits include costumes for Two Trains Running at Signature Theatre—Lortel winner, best revival of a play, AUDELCO nominee, best costumes—and Bach at Leipzig for New York Theatre Workshop. Mr. LeFebvre has designed costumes for the Guthrie Theater, The Acting Company, The Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, The Kansas City Rep, Arizona Theatre Company, Trinity Rep, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Geffen Playhouse, Mixed Blood Theatre and American Players Theatre.

KALERE A. PAYTON (COSTUME DESIGNER) designed costumes for Penumbra Theatre's The Whipping Man. Other costume design credits include The Wiz and A Bright Room Called Day for The University of Minnesota as well as The Producing House's Power Balladz and Park Square Theatre's Othello. Ms. Payton was the Assistant Costume Designer for several Penumbra productions including Get Ready, REDSHIRTS, Fences, Radio Golf and Black Nativity: A Season For Change. She earned her Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Arts with an emphasis on Costume Design and Technology from the University of Minnesota.

JULIANA PETERSON (Assistant Scene Design) graduated from the University of Minnesota in May 2007. Recently, she worked as scene design assistant for Sherlock’s Last Case on the Minnesota Centennial Showboat. This summer, she also directed a play in the Bedlam Theatre’s Ten-Minute Play Festival and stage managed Come and Get It at the Open Eye Figure Theatre. She works as a stage manager and backstage hand at the Ted Mann Concert Hall, and as a freelance theatre artist.

STEPHANIE LEIN WALSETH (August Wilson Fellow) is an M.A./Ph.D. candidate in Theatre Historiography at the University of Minnesota. Previously, she served as the Managing Director of Mu Performing Arts. She has worked professionally as a theatre administrator, actor, director, dramaturg, and stage manager with several theatres including Mu, Mixed Blood Theatre, the Guthrie Theater, The Playwrights' Center, Frank Theatre, Theatre in the Round, Starting Gate Productions, Theatre Unbound, Chaos Theories, CLIMB Theatre, and the Portland Stage Company. Her writing has appeared in the Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance.

ERIKA K. DIXON GOSS (American Sign Language Interpreter) has been the ASL Interpreter for Penumbra Theater for 11 years. Erika has had the pleasure of interpreting works by the late August Wilson including Seven Guitars and King Hedley II, The Piano Lesson and Gem of the Ocean. Erika also interprets for Hopkin's Stages Theater, Plymouth Playhouse, Anoka's Main Street Stage, and The State and Pantages Theatres.