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.

FRANK HIGGINS (PLAYWRIGHT) is the author of The Sweet By 'n' By which was produced with Blythe Danner and Gwyneth Paltrow. His other plays include WMKS: Where Music Kills Sorrow, Gunplay, and Miracles, and several plays for young audiences including Anansi the Spider and The Middle Passage and The Country of the Blind. His plays have been seen at the Old Globe Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, The Barter Theater, Florida Studio Theater, Merrimack Repertory Theater, Inter-Act Theater, Sacramento Theatre Company, and others. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a member of the Dramatists Guild.

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.

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.

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.

CRYSTAL FOX (PEARL) is delighted to make her Penumbra debut. Other theatre performances include Fences at Huntington Theatre, The Breach and Gem of the Ocean at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Seven Guitars and From the Mississippi Delta at Alliance Theatre, and Antony and Cleopatra, The Piano Lesson, Comedy of Errors, and A Raisin in the Sun at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Ms. Fox has also worked with True Colors Theatre, Portland Center Stage and Round House Theatre. Ms. Fox is most noted for her role as Sgt. Luann Corbin on the television series In the Heat of the Night. Other television and film credits include The Old Settler, Third Watch, Law & Order, The Sopranos, Mama Flora's Family, and Driving Miss Daisy.

STACIA RICE (SUSANNAH) is pleased to make her Penumbra debut. Most recently she appeared in Dancing at Lughnasa and The Mary Tyler Moore Show at Torch Theater and Crime and Punishment at The Jungle Th eatre. She has also worked with the Guthrie Theater, Mixed Blood Theatre, Park Square Theatre, among others. In 2002 she was voted Best Actress in the Twin Cities by City Pages and in 2005 she received an Ivey Award for her work as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

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.

MARCUS DILLIARD (LIGHTING DESIGNER) has designed for theater, opera and dance across North America and in Europe, including numerous productions for Theatre de la Jeune Lune, The Guthrie Theater, The Minnesota Opera and the Minnesota Orchestra. Recent designs include All Is Calm at the Pantages Theater, Faith Healer for the Guthrie Theater and La bohème for Portland Opera. He has also designed lighting for Children's Theatre Company, Theater Latté Da, History Theatre, Mixed Blood, Minnesota Dance Theater, Flying Foot Forum and Katha Dance Company. Mr. Dilliard holds a B.A. from Lehigh University and an M.F.A. from Boston University School for the Arts. Awards include a 2006 McKnight Foundation Theater Artist Fellowship, 2005 Ivey Award, 2003 Minnesota State Arts Board Grant, and a 1998 McKnight Foundation Theater Artist Fellowship.

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.

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.

JONATHON OFFUTT (ASSISTANT SCENIC DESIGNER & PROPS MASTER) is a recent graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he earned a B.A. in Theatre. He is currently pursuing his M.F.A. in Scenery and Lighting Design at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Past designs include, In The Blood (KC/ ACTF National Honors), Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (Actor’s Equity), and The Rivals.