JAMES CRAVEN (Solly Two Kings) is a longtime Penumbra Theatre company member. Recent Penumbra credits include The Piano Lesson, REDSHIRTS, Get Ready, Zooman and the Sign and Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers, produced in collaboration with Trinity Repertory Theatre. He also recently performed at Kansas City Repertory Theatre and Arizona Theatre Company in their joint production of Jitney. James is a 2005 recipient of the Spenser Cherashore Fund. He used this grant to research Native American culture and the experiences of the Buffalo Soldiers ca. 1880, in the greater Southwestern United States. This research provided invaluable knowledge that James applied to the creation of his role of Craig Robe in Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers.

TERRY HEMPLEMAN (Rutherford Selig) has appeared at Penumbra in Joe Turner's Come and Gone and at the Guthrie in His Girl Friday and Lake Hollywood. Recent acting credits include Huck Finn, Anon(ymous) and Amber Waves at The Children's Theatre Company; Last of the Boys, Same Time Next Year, Orange Flower Water and Fool for Love at The Jungle Theater; Cyrano, Carousel and The Ballad of the Sad Café with Ten Thousand Things; Frozen, Of Mice and Men and A Midsummer Night's Dream at Park Square Theatre; and Dinner With Friends at Eye of the Storm. His film work includes Factotum, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Mallrats and the PBS film A Psychic Mom. Terry was awarded Best Actor in the Twin Cities by City Pages in 2003.

MARVETTE KNIGHT (Aunt Ester) is a longtime Penumbra Theatre company member. She is also a fulltime member of The Children's Theatre Company. She has performed with the Guthrie Theater, Park Square and Mixed Blood. As a choreographer, she has worked with these same theaters as well as the La Jolla Playhouse, History Theatre, Zenon Dance Company, the Sounds of Blackness, Youth Movement Company, Steppingstone Theatre and Stages Theatre. Marvette choreographs and teaches dance for several schools throughout the area and The Children's Theatre Company's Theatre Arts Training program. In an international spectacle titled Chatouranga, Marvette choreographed a cast of over 1,500 dancers and singers for the production in Fribourg, Switzerland. Select awards include the Critics Circle Kudos Award and the Katherine Dunham Award.

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.

T. MYCHAEL RAMBO (Caesar) is an actor, vocalist and educator. He has performed at Penumbra Theatre since 1989 and is now a company member. His most recent Penumbra credits include The Piano Lesson, Black Nativity: Twenty Years of Holiday Cheer!, Get Ready and Ain't Misbehavin'. He has performed with the Guthrie Theater, Illusion Theater, Minnesota Opera, Ordway Music Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, Park Square Theatre, Hey City Theatre, a number of regional theater companies, at Carnegie Hall with the Minnesota Orchestra and internationally throughout Canada, Europe, Africa and Brazil. He has appeared in several local and national television commercials and in HBO miniseries including Laurel Avenue, Endeavor and I Led Two Lives. Film credits include The Mighty Ducks, Crossing the Bridge, Grumpy Old Men, The Cure, Equinox, Wooly Boys and Justice. Rambo also has to his credit two CDs: Simply and The Gift.

ABDUL SALAAM EL RAZZAC (Eli) is a founding member of Penumbra Theatre. He has also performed at the Willamstown Theatre Festival, Los Angeles Theater Center, A.C.T., Long Wharf, Mark Taper, the Guthrie, South Coast Rep, Trinity Rep, Tiffany Theater, the Nate Holden Theater, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Kansas City Rep and Arizona Theater Company. He has directed at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, Zephyr, L.A.T.C. and Glaxa Theaters, as well as staged readings for the Audrey Skirball-Kenis Theatre and the Mark Taper's Mentor Reading Series. Awards include the N.A.A.C.P. Image Award and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for performance, and the Los Angeles Dramalog Award for best director and the N.A.A.C.P. Image Award best director nomination. Select film and television credits include Star Trek: The Next Generation, Pretty Woman, Glory, Malcolm X, Terminator II, Frasier and Conversations with God.

AUSTENE VAN (Black Mary/ Choreography) is a Penumbra Theatre company member. She was the director for this season's Black Nativity: Twenty Years of Holiday Cheer! and co-director for Black Nativity - A Homecoming in 2006. Recently, she directed and choreographed Blues in the Night at the Ordway Center. Select credits at Penumbra include Get Ready, Blue, Ain't Misbehavin', Zooman and the Sign, Dinah Was, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Seven Guitars, The Last Minstrel Show and Lost in the Stars, and Penumbra's co-production with the Guthrie of The Darker Face of the Earth. She has also performed at The Children’s Theatre, Pantages, Mixed Blood and the Saint Louis Black Repertory Theatre. Television credits include Happiness, Vernie and The Shake Down. Musical recordings include Van Album, Gift of Love and Kef.

LOU BELLAMY (Director) is the founder and artistic director of Penumbra Theatre. He has been a member of the University of Minnesota's faculty for 31 years and is currently appointed to the rank of associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance. Recent awards include the 2007 Obie for Direction and the 2006 McKnight Distinguished Artist Award. Recent directing credits of Wilson's plays include the staged reading of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at the Kennedy Center, The Piano Lesson at Penumbra, Two Trains Running at the Signature Theatre in New York and Jitney at Kansas City Repertory Theatre and Arizona Theatre Company. Other recent directing credits at Penumbra include REDSHIRTS, Get Ready, Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers, Zooman and the Sign and Black Nativity - A Homecoming.

MARY K. WINCHELL (Stage Manager) is in her 21st season with Penumbra Theatre. Recent Penumbra credits include The Piano Lesson, Get Ready and Black Nativity: Twenty Years of Holiday Cheer! Other select Penumbra credits include Fences at Penumbra and the Guthrie Theater, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Jitney, Two Trains Running, King Hedley II and Dinah Was. Mary has also stage managed at the Orpheum Theatre, State Theatre, Pantages Theatre, The Children's Theatre Company, The Jungle Theater and the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami. She has also served as production stage manager for Dorothy Hamill's Nutcracker on Ice, and lent her talents to Macy's Glamorama, the Aveda Corporation including Aveda's 20th Anniversary Celebration at Radio City Music Hall, and Super Bowl XXVI Winter Magic.

MATHEW J. LEFEBVRE (Scenic and Costume Design) has designed several productions for Penumbra including Get Ready, Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers, On the Open Road, Black Eagles, Joe Turner's Come and Gone and Jitney. Off-Broadway designs include Two Trains Running at Signature Theatre and Bach at Leipzig at New York Theatre Workshop. Set design includes Shapiro and Smith Dance, Anytown and Notes from a Séance at the Joy. He has designed the costumes for 15 productions at the Guthrie Theater including She Loves Me, Pride and Prejudice, Wintertime, Merrily We Roll Along and The School for Scandal. Other regional credits include Tartuffe, A Flea in Her Ear, Bach at Leipzig at Milwaukee Rep, Jitney, A Raisin in the Sun and Two Trains Running at Kansas City Repertory Theatre. He has also designed for Arizona Theatre Company, Trinity Rep, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Geffen Playhouse and American Players Theatre.

MICHELLE HABECK (Lighting Design) recently designed the lighting for The Piano Lesson and REDSHIRTS at Penumbra Theatre. Other collaborations with Lou Bellamy include A Raisin in the Sun, Two Trains Running and Jitney at Kansas City Rep. Recent national credits include Love Song at Steppenwolf Theatre, Carter's Way at Kansas City Rep, Things of Dry Hours and Elimina's Kitchen at Center Stage, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at Alliance Theatre Company, and Lobby Hero at the Goodman Theatre. She has worked as associate lighting designer with Tony Award-winning designer Donald Holder on Gem of the Ocean, King Hedley II, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, among others. Michelle is a National Endowment for the Arts/TCG Grant winner for 2003-2004.

MALO ADAMS (Sound Design) has designed several Penumbra productions including The Piano Lesson, Zooman and the Sign, Sex Diary of an Infidel, Dinah Was, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Two Trains Running, Seven Guitars and King Hedley II. Other design credits include Mighty Real, A Slow Ride on the Big Muddy and Straight as a Line at the Hennepin Center for Performing Arts. In addition to design work, Malo is the creative force behind the critically acclaimed group Tribe of Millions. Malo has also played with Me’Shell Ndegeocello, The Black Crowes, Soul Asylum, Chaka Khan, and has worked with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. He has also scored films including Street Guns and The Visionary, and commercials for Target Market, Target, Marshall Field's, Mervyn's, African American Adoption Agency and Dunwoody Institute.

STEPHANIE LEIN WALSETH (Dramaturg) is an M.A./Ph.D. candidate in Theatre Historiography at the University of Minnesota and is pleased to be the August Wilson Fellow for Penumbra's 2007-08 season. Previously she served as the managing director of the Minneapolis-based Asian American theater and taiko company Mu Performing Arts. She has worked professionally as a theater administrator, actor, director, dramaturg and stage manager throughout the Twin Cities with companies such as 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 in Maine at the Portland Stage Company. Her writing has appeared in the Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance, and she is currently serving as the co-artistic director of the University's Xperimental Theatre.

FAYE M. PRICE (Transliteration Artist) is a longtime Penumbra Theatre company member. She originated the role of Rachel in the 1982-83 production of Zooman and the Sign, and returned to that role in the 2006 production. Other Penumbra credits include the company's inaugural production Eden in 1977, The African American Company Presents Richard III in 1987-88 and Jar the Floor in 1997-98. Recent credits include Tracey Scott Wilson's The Story, Daniel Alexander Jones' Bel Canto and Athol Fugard's Boesman and Lena at Pillsbury House Theatre, where she also serves as co-artistic producing director. Other credits include The Women's Theater Project and Productions, Hudson Guild Theater, Circle In The Square, Guthrie Theater, Baltimore Center Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Mixed Blood and Eye of the Storm. A production dramaturg for more than a dozen productions at the Guthrie, Penumbra and the History Theatre, Faye was awarded the August Wilson Fellowship for Dramaturgy and Literary Criticism, and received her graduate degree from the University of Minnesota.

ELIZABETH R. MacNALLY (Assistant Stage Manager) is excited to be with Penumbra for the first time. She has most recently stage managed 9 Parts of Desire at the Guthrie Theater, and some of her favorite productions include Bug with Pillsbury House Theatre, Two for the Seesaw and Last of the Boys with The Jungle Theater, as well as many other productions. Elizabeth has also stage managed at Park Square Theatre, Pillsbury House Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, the History Theatre, Minnesota Shakespeare Project, Frank Theatre and New American Theatre. She has her B.F.A. from Rockford College in Rockford, Ill.

STEVEN HORSTMANN (Properties Master/Scenic Design Assistant) works locally as a scenic designer, performer and musician with companies such as Open Eye Figure Theatre, Four Humors Theater and Penumbra. He is a performing member of the Seattle-based traveling vaudeville troupe The New Old Time Chautauqua. Most recently, he appeared in Mud at the Bedlam Theatre. Steven holds a degree in Theatre Arts and Architecture from the University of Minnesota.

KRISTIN T. ABHALTER (Scenic Design Assistant) has worked as a scenic artist for many Penumbra productions including The Piano Lesson, REDSHIRTS and Blue. Locally she has been designing and painting for the Interact Center, Hamline University Theatre and the Walker Art Center's Momentum Dance Series at The Southern Theatre. She has worked for a season as a design assistant at Denver Center Theatre and has an M.F.A. in scenic arts from the University of Minnesota.

KATHY MAXWELL (Lighting Design Assistant) is the Master Electrician for Penumbra Theatre and has worked on The Piano Lesson, Black Nativity and REDSHIRTS. She recently did the lighting design for Lights Up! at the Illusion Theatre and was the assistant lighting designer for The Rocky Horror Show at the Ordway.