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.

MATTHEW LOPEZ (Playwright) premiered his play The Whipping Man at Luna Stage in April 2006. His play Tio Pepe was recently presented at the Public Theater as part of Summer Play Festival 2008. Other plays include Reverberation, Noble Street, Between Us, and Phemmi Klompers, Agent to the Stars. His work has been seen and developed at the McCarter Theatre, The New Group, The Lark Play Development Center, Luna Stage, Backhouse Productions, Monarch Theatre and breedingground productions. He is a 2009 member of the Ars Nova Writers Group. Matthew is a graduate of the University of South Florida.

SANFORD MOORE (MUSICAL DIRECTOR) has served as musical director for many Penumbra productions including The Piano Lesson, Get Ready, Blue, Black Nativity - A Homecoming and Ain't Misbehavin'. Other select musical direction credits include Crowns, Dream on Monkey Mountain, Triumph of Love, and As You Like It at the Guthrie Theater and Two Queens, One Castle at Mixed Blood Theatre. Sanford is an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota School of Music, and Minister of Music for Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church.

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.

SARAH BELLAMY (EDUCATION DIRECTOR) is the principal scholar and editor for Penumbra Theatre. Her work includes the research and composition of the contextual essays to accompany Penumbra's main-stage productions. Ms. Bellamy also oversees the creation of standardized, original curricula for educators to engage culturally specific arts in their classrooms. She has designed several programs that engage patrons of the theatre in critical thinking, dialogue and action around issues of race and social justice. Among the most renowned are the "RACE Workshop: Meet Your Metaphor," curated to accompany the Science Museum of Minnesota's exhibit RACE: Are We So Different?, and Penumbra Theatres Summer Institute, an intensive theatre-training program for youth to practice socially responsible art and civic engagement. Ms. Bellamy is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, and holds an M.A. from The University of Chicago. She is currently working toward her doctorate in Comparative Studies and Discourse in Society at the University of Minnesota.

MARY K. WINCHELL (STAGE MANAGER) is a longtime Penumbra Theatre company member. Most recently, she stage managed Penumbra's Black Pearl Sings!, Black Nativity: A Season for Change, Radio Golf and Gem of the Ocean. Other Penumbra credits include The Piano Lesson, Get Ready, Black Nativity: Twenty Years of Holiday Cheer!, Seven Guitars, Jitney, Two Trains Running, King Hedley II and Dinah Was. She has stage managed at the Orpheum Theatre, State Theatre, Pantages Theatre, Children's Theatre Company, Jungle Theater and the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami. She has lent her talents to Macy's Glamorama and served as production stage manager for Dorothy Hamill’s Nutcracker on Ice, Aveda's 20th Anniversary Celebration at Radio City Music Hall, and Super Bowl xxvi Winter Magic.

RABBI JOSEPH EDELHEIT (Dramaturgical Consultant) is the Director of Religious and Jewish Studies and Professor of Philosophy at St Cloud State University. He has been a rabbi for more than 35 years and served as the Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel of Minneapolis until 2001. He has a D Min from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago and was the first rabbi to complete his doctoral work in Christian theology. He has been an AIDS activist since 1986 and served on President Clinton's Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. He has authored scholarly articles and chapters on interfaith dialogue, Post-Holocaust Theology, HIV/AIDS and religion as well as essays dealing with the Hebrew Bible and Jewish Philosophy. He and his wife Machelle Norling direct Living India a non-profit which does HIV/AIDS prevention education and cares for AIDS orphans whose parents have died of AIDS and are themselves infected.

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.

DUANE BOUTTÉ (John) has performed on Broadway in Carousel and Parade. Off-Broadway performances include Playwrights Horizons' The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds her Chameleon Skin, and The Heliotrope Bouquet, and Civil Sex at the Public Theater. World premiere credits include Terrence McNally's Some Men at the Philadelphia Theatre Co. and Charles Randolph Wright's Cuttin' Up at Arena Stage and Alliance Theatre. He has also worked with Vineyard Theatre, The Acting Company, LaMaMa, Shakespeare Theatre Company (D.C.), Center Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Seattle Rep., La Jolla Playhouse, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center, Goodman Theatre and Oregon Shakespeare Festival, among others. Film credits include You Belong to Me, Stonewall, and Brother to Brother. Credits as a musical composer include Lyin' Up a Breeze for Second Stage, Fresno, and Caravaggio Chiaroscuro for La Mama, New York.

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.

JOSEPH PAPKE (Caleb De Leon) is proud to be making his Penumbra stage debut. As an actor and dialect coach his professional credits include Park Square Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, Actors Theatre of MN, Illusion Theatre, Jon Hassler Theatre, Dudley Riggs, Walking Shadow Theatre Company, Paul Bunyan Playhouse, and The Children's Theatre Company. As an educator, he has taught theater skills at Normandale Community College, Youth Performance Company, and the Guthrie Theater. Joseph earned his M.F.A. from The Shakespeare Theatre Company's Academy for Classical Acting. Look for him in the upcoming film Midnight Chronicles.

KENNETH F. EVANS (Scenic Designer) has designed several shows for Penumbra including; King Hedley II, Seven Guitars, Two Trains Running, Jitney, Blues For An Alabama Sky, Pill Hill, Playboy of The West Indies, Songhai, Raisin, Riffs, Black Eagles, Dinah Was, The Piano Lesson, Soul Alley and the one-man tour of Malcolm X. Lighting design credits include 'night Mother, The Foreigner, Kuni-leml, A Chorus Line and Painting Churches at the Birmingham Theatre (a Nederlander organization) in Detroit and off-Broadway revivals of Les Blancs and Streamers. Ken earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota and his M.F.A. degree at Wayne State University. His current lighting designs can be seen locally on the radio for A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor.

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.

KATHY A. PERKINS (Lighting Designer) has designed throughout the United States, as well as in Europe and South Africa. She has worked Off-Broadway with The New Federal Theatre and Manhattan Theatre Club and in such venues as Carnegie Hall and Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). She was resident designer for two seasons at the Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC). Regional designs include American Conservatory Theatre, The Goodman, Alliance, Mark Taper, Berkeley Repertory, St. Louis Black Repertory, A Contemporary Theatre, Indiana Repertory, Seattle Repertory, Congo Square, Alabama Shakespeare Festival and Court Theatre. Kathy is the editor/coeditor of five anthologies focusing on African/African Diaspora women. She currently chairs the lighting design program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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.

ANGELIQUE POWERS (Assistant Scenic Designer) recently became the Scenic Charge Artist at Penumbra. She has also painted for The Children's Theatre Company, Theater Latté Da, the Guthrie, The Denver Center and many more. She received her M.F.A. in Scenic Art from Cal Arts.