ADEOYE (Joseph Asagai) A resident of Chicago, Adeoye most recently appeared in Lookingglass Theatre Company's production of Icarus at The Getty Villa in Malibu, Calif., and in the Victory Gardens Theater festival IGNITION: Emerging Playwrights of Color. Other Chicago credits include Black Diamond: The Years the Locusts Have Eaten at Lookingglass and The Unmentionables at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Regional credits include Intimate Apparel at the Clarence Brown Theatre in Knoxville, Tenn., and A Raisin in the Sun at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre in Missouri. Television credits include “Leverage” on TNT and “Prison Break” on FOX. Adeoye also appears in the independent film Chicago Overcoat.

DAVID ALAN ANDERSON (Walter Lee Younger) comes to this production from Indianapolis where he makes his home. He is a frequent performer at Indiana Repertory Theatre where his many credits include Looking Over the President's Shoulder, Searching for Eden, Gem of the Ocean, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Julius Caesar, Crumbs From the Table of Joy and The Cherry Orchard. He is a member of Penumbra Theatre Company where his credits include Seven Guitars, Jitney, King Hedley II, Two Trains Running and A Raisin in the Sun. Regional credits include Othello and King Lear, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival; Macbeth at The Black Rep, St. Louis; as well as appearances at Delaware Theatre Company, Baltimore's CenterStage, Berkshire Theatre Festival, People's Light & Theatre, Kansas City Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Human Race Theatre Company, Geva Theatre and Syracuse Stage. Mr. Anderson also directs and teaches.

DAMRON RUSSEL ARMSTRONG (Bobo) has performed regionally at Paper Mill Playhouse, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, The Palace, Unicorn Theatre, The Show Palace and The Coterie Theatre just to name a few. He has enjoyed performing in productions such as The Exonerated as Robert Earl Hayes, Topdog Underdog as Lincoln, Driving Miss Daisy as Hoke, The Old Settler as Husband, In the Blood as Trouble and Doctor and, of course, Bobo in A Raisin in the Sun. In addition to straight plays, he has been seen in musicals such as Ragtime, Children of Eden, Ain't Misbehavin', Big River, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Full Monty, Dreamgirls and in the Stephen Schwartz and David Sterns stage adaptation of Geppetto and Son.

LUCAS BELLAMY (Moving Man) was born and raised in Minnesota and is the company manager at Penumbra Theatre. He grew up with theatre at Penumbra and was formally introduced to acting through drama classes at Breck School in Golden Valley. Penumbra stage credits include Waiting in Vain by Rebecca Rice in 1993 and Get Ready by Jaye T. Stewart and Joe Plummer in 2007. Lucas is thrilled to appear on the Guthrie stage for the first time.

FRANCHELLE STEWART DORN (Lena Younger) resides in Austin and heads the acting program at the University of Texas. She was seen last season as Zabina, Queen of Turkey at the opening of the new Harman Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C. She has spent the past 40 years as an actress playing dozens of roles in theaters across the country including The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Arena Stage, American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Great Lakes Shakespeare Company, Yale Rep and Long Wharf Theatre. Television and film credits include "Law & Order," "Another World," Literary Visions, The Pelican Brief and Die Hard with a Vengeance.

KYLE HADEN (George Murchison) Selected credits include the regional premiere of Defiance at the Arvada Center; Hamlet at The Shakespeare Theatre Company; Richard III, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Visit and The Comedy of Errors at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Richard 3 at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club; A Raisin in the Sun at Kansas City Repertory Theatre; Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and the title character in Macbeth at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival; and The Taming of the Shrew and the world premiere of The Peculiar and Sudden Nearness of the Moon at Sacramento Theatre Company. A native of Pittsburgh, Mr. Haden received his B.A. from Wake Forest University and his M.F.A. from Columbia University.

STEVEN NICHOLAS JACKSON (Travis Younger) hails from Brooklyn Park and is the youngest child of three. Nicholas attends a performing arts school in the Twin Cities area where he is on the honor roll. His hobbies include playing the saxophone in the school band, karate and spending time with his family. Nicholas has been a professional model since the age of 3 and has done numerous print ads. This is his first year performing with Penumbra Theatre.

BAKESTA KING (Beneatha Younger) is playing the role of Beneatha for the third time in her career. She resides in Chicago where she is a proud ensemble member of Congo Square Theatre. Her Chicago credits include A Lesson Before Dying, Steppenwolf Theatre Company; Crumbs From the Table of Joy, the Goodman Theatre; The Talented Tenth (nominated for Best Performance by the Black Theatre Alliance), Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Deep Azure and Layla's Dream all with Congo Square Theatre. Her regional credits include Joe Turner's Come and Gone at Baltimore's CenterStage; Columbo Takes the Rap written by Columbo creator William Link, at the International Mystery Writer's Festival; and A Raisin in the Sun at Kansas City Repertory and Studio Arena Theatre. Ms. King received her B.F.A. from Howard University and her M.F.A. from The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

ERIKA LaVONN (Ruth Younger) has performed twice on Broadway including spending several years as Nala, Sarabi, Animal Flora and Fauna in The Lion King. Ms. LaVonn has worked at His Majesty's Theatre in Perth, West Australia; Union Square Theatre Off-Broadway; The Kennedy Center; The Schubert Theatre in Boston; Portland Center Stage; Actors Theatre of Louisville; Arizona Theatre Company; The Denver Center for the Performing Arts; Baltimore's CenterStage; and many others. Television and film credits include "One Life to Live," "Law & Order: SVU," Always Outnumbered, numerous commercials, The Final Patient, and War of the Worlds.

PATRICK THOMAS O'BRIEN (Karl Lindner) has appeared nationally at the New York, New Jersey and Los Angeles Shakespeare festivals; the La Jolla, Pasadena and George Street playhouses; The Old Globe; Arena Stage; Mixed Blood Theatre; and the Old Log Theatre; and is currently an associate artist with the Iowa Theatre Artists Company. Films include Pleasantville, Stuart Little, Catch Me If You Can, Intolerable Cruelty, Forget Paris, Brady Bunch: the Movie, Kiss the Girls and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Television credits include "Monk," "The West Wing," "ER," "C.S.I.," "Married With Children," "Dragnet," "Malcolm in the Middle," "The Larry Sanders Show," "Night Court," "Sabrina," "Dharma and Greg," "The Wonder Years," "Home Improvement," "Caroline in the City," and, if you're under 30, he was Mr. Dewey in "Saved by the Bell."

PAYTON J. WOODSON (Moving Man) was recently seen in Bud, Not Buddy at The Children's Theatre Company and Home at Pillsbury House Theatre. He is an associate company member at Pillsbury House, and has appeared in several of their productions including This City of Dreams, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, A Streetcar Named Desire, Angels in America and Boseman and Lena. Career highlights include participation in the Chicago Avenue Project with Pillsbury House, traveling to the White House with one of his students to receive the prestigious Coming Up Taller Award, and portraying Malcolm X in The Meeting with the Phoenix Players Theater in Nairobi, Kenya. Recently, he has been seen in the television commercial for Mall of America's Nickelodeon Universe. Payton received his B.A. from Prairie View A&M University.

GARBLEEJEE L. ZEOGAR (Understudy for Travis Younger) lives in Maplewood. He began his acting and modeling training at Caryn's Modeling and Talent Agency and has since appeared in numerous shows and productions with the agency. His favorite sport is basketball, and he presently plays for the Park Center, Brooklyn Park, traveling basketball team. He is a student at Risen Christ Catholic School.

LORRAINE HANSBERRY (Author) was an African American playwright and author of political speeches and essays. Her most famous work, A Raisin in the Sun, was inspired by her own family's legal battle against racially segregated housing laws in her native Chicago. Ms. Hansberry dropped out of college to move to New York and pursue her writing. Her first job was as a columnist for Freedom, a newspaper published by Paul Robeson. While there she wrote A Raisin in the Sun. Meanwhile, she met her husband Robert Nemiroff on a picket line, and they spent the evening before their wedding protesting the controversial execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the only U.S. civilians to be sentenced to death for espionage. A Raisin in the Sun took six years from when Ms. Hansberry began to circulate it among producers until its Broadway production in 1959, which then received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. It was the first play written by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. The only other play of hers produced in her lifetime was The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, which had a short run and closed on the night of Ms. Hansberry's death from pancreatic cancer on January 12, 1965. She was 34 years old. Posthumously, To Be Young, Gifted and Black, adapted from her writings by Robert Nemiroff, was Off-Broadway's longest-running production of the 1968–69 season.

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.

VICKI M. SMITH (SCENIC DESIGNER) has designed several productions at Penumbra including A Raisin in the Sun and Zooman and the Sign. She has also designed for The Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, Cleveland Play House, Seattle Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Geva Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, Dallas Theatre Center, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Children's Theatre Company, Minnesota Opera, Anchorage Opera, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, ACT Seattle, Alley Theatre and Berkeley Rep. Pierre, one of her recent designs for The Denver Center Theatre Company, was selected for the Prague Quadrennial Design Exposition 2007.

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.

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.

JAMES C. SWONGER (Sound Designer) This is Mr. Swonger's fifth season as the resident sound designer at The Cleveland Play House. His many designs for The Play House include Noises Off!, The Glass Menagerie, Gee's Bend, The Chosen, Man of La Mancha, Lincolnesque, Of Mice and Men, Dream a Little Dream, Custody of the Eyes, Well, A Streetcar Named Desire, A Christmas Story, I Am My Own Wife, Room Service, Rounding Third, The Piano Lesson, John Henry (Theater for Children) and Tuesdays with Morrie. He has also designed for Cleveland's Lyric Opera Company, The Utah Festival Opera Company, Pioneer Theatre Company, Baltimore's CenterStage, George Street Playhouse and Yale Repertory Theatre. Other credits include the premiere productions of The Tragic Demise of the Whaleship Essex, Swinging on a Star: A Tribute to the Music of Johnny Burke, Tangents and The Count of Monte Cristo, adapted by Charles Morey; and sound system designs for various restaurants, theaters and churches.

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.

JOHN KINGSBURY (Stage Manager) was producing director at Arizona Theatre Company until his retirement last season after nine seasons. Prior to joining Arizona Theatre Company, Mr. Kingsbury served as production manager at Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre and PCPA Theaterfest. A member of Actors' Equity Association, Mr. Kingsbury has stage managed more than 100 productions at Arizona Theatre Company, ACT Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre, Virginia Stage Company, PCPA Theaterfest, The Alley Theatre, The Manhattan Punchline and the Old Globe, among others. He has served on the faculty of the Cornish College of the Arts and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he was also the head of the stage management program. Mr. Kingsbury was the recipient of a Fulbright Collaborative Research Grant to study theater management in the Netherlands during the 1986–87 theater season where he worked with De Nederlandse Opera company, among others. More recently, he served as a grants panelist for the Arizona Commission on the Arts.

JUSTIN HOSSLE (Assistant Stage Manager) just completed a run of A Delicate Balance on the McGuire Proscenium at the Guthrie, where he has also been part of the stage management team for Little House on the Prairie, After a Hundred Years and Private Lives. He'll next work on the world premiere of Tony Kushner's The Intelligent Homosexual at the Guthrie. Other credits include Doubt and Marie Antoinette: The Color of Flesh at Caldwell Theater Company and The Secret of Sherlock Holmes and The Merry Wives of Windsor at Shakespeare and Company. In town, he has stage managed and assistant stage managed at Theater Latté Da, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Minnesota Jewish Theatre and The Minnesota Opera. Mr. Hossle makes his Penumbra debut with A Raisin in the Sun. He received his B.A. in theater from the University of Northern Iowa.

TIFFANY K. ORR (Assistant Stage Manager) has numerous credits with theaters in the Twin Cities, including Pillsbury House Theatre, where she stage managed Bulrusher, and The Children's Theatre Company, where she was the assistant stage manager for Fashion 47. Other stage management credits include The O'Conner Girls, The Diary of Anne Frank and Taking Steps at Park Square Theatre and Menopause the Musical for TOC Productions, Inc. She worked on more than a dozen productions as part of the stage management team at the Phoenix Theatre, including Disney's Beauty and the Beast, The Women, You Can't Take It With You, Smokey Joe's Café and Will Rogers Follies. At the Guthrie, Tiffany was the assistant stage manager for A View from the Bridge. This is her first production with Penumbra Theatre.

HARRIET BASS, C.S.A. (Casting) has been an independent casting director since 1989, casting for theater, film and television. In New York, Ms. Bass has cast for ABC/TV, Fox Television, The Public Theater: New Work Now, Minetta Lane Theatre, Women's Project, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, New York Women in Film and Television and Jewish Repertory Theatre. She cast the last three of the late August Wilson's plays: Radio Golf, original and touring productions; Gem of the Ocean on Broadway; and Jitney Off -Broadway. Selected regional credits include Mark Taper Forum, Hartford Stage, Arena Stage, Trinity Repertory Theatre, San Jose Rep, Geva Theatre, Indiana Rep, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Merrimack Rep, Long Wharf Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Kansas City Rep, Baltimore's CenterStage, Huntington Theatre, Virginia Stage Company, Portland Center Stage and PlayMakers Rep. Film credits include Pushing Hands, Underheat and First We Take Manhattan. Ms. Bass guest teaches acting and auditioning at conservatory and university programs nationally.

PENUMBRA THEATRE was founded in 1976 by Lou Bellamy to make socially responsible art - art that demanded a response, art with intent, art that could create change. At a time when roles for black artists were limited to stereotypes and comical representations, Penumbra produced theater that roared with authenticity through the unrestrained and rich voice of black artists and playwrights. This respect for cultural authenticity became Penumbra's signature style - and demand for it has reached new heights from theaters around the country fostering collaborations, new productions, tours and awards. In 2006, Penumbra's first national tour was co-produced with Trinity Repertory Theatre in the staging of Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers. Penumbra has also co-produced with Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Md. Last season, Mr. Bellamy and Penumbra journeyed to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. This season, Penumbra joins forces with The Cleveland Play House, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company and the Guthrie Theater. For the latest news and updates, visit www.penumbratheatre.org.

ARIZONA THEATRE COMPANY is the state theatre of Arizona. It is the leading professional theater in Arizona and the only resident company in the United States with a three city operation. Now in its 42nd season, nearly 150,000 people a year attend its performances at the historic Temple of Music and Art in Tucson, the state-of-the-art Herberger Th eater Center in downtown Phoenix, and the 4-year-old Mesa Arts Center. Each season refl ects the rich variety of world drama – from classics to contemporary plays, from musicals to new works – along with a wide array of outreach programs, educational opportunities, access initiatives and new play programs. www.aztheatreco.org

THE CLEVELAND PLAY HOUSE is America's first regional theatre, founded in 1915. In the Play House's 90-plus seasons, over 11 million people have attended more than 1,300 productions, including more than 100 world and/or American premieres. Some notable premieres include works by Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Bertolt Brecht, William Saroyan, Luigi Pirandello, Brian Friel, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, Paul Zindel, Eric Coble and Lee Blessing. Today, under the leadership of Artistic Director Michael Bloom and Managing Director Kevin Moore, The Play House operates in the largest theatre facility in the United States. It serves over 100,000 Greater Clevelanders every year, with an eight-play subscription series, three-play Theatre for Children series, and comprehensive education programs ranging from the long-running Curtain Pullers youth programs to the Case Western Reserve University/ Cleveland Play House MFA Acting Program. Each season now also includes FusionFest, a multidisciplinary celebration of the performing arts which, in 2009, will feature the world premiere of Thornton Wilder's novel Heaven's My Destination, adapted by Lee Blessing. For more information about The Cleveland Play House, visit www.clevelandplayhouse.com.

THE GUTHRIE THEATER opened on May 7, 1963, with a production of Hamlet directed by Sir Tyrone Guthrie, the theater's founder. What began as a summer season of four productions supported by a minimal staff is now a complex organization employing more than 900 people per year. Under current Artistic Director Joe Dowling's leadership, the new Guthrie opened in June 2006 on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Th is architectural gem, designed by Jean Nouvel, houses three stages – a classic thrust stage for the grand-scale classics of the centuries, a proscenium stage for the more intimate classics of this century and a studio theater for developing the classics of tomorrow. It also includes production and rehearsal facilities, administrative offices and, for the first time in the Guthrie's history, an entire floor of classrooms for the theater's everexpanding education programs. The new theater allows the Guthrie to retain its preeminence among theaters nationally and internationally. www.guthrietheater.org.