Oo-Bla-Dee

Regina Taylor is an actress/director/playwright. She is featured in Netflix’s One Day and a Night starring Jeffrey Wright, Ashton Saunders and directed/written by Joe Robert Cole (co-writer of Black Panther), and guest stars on Red Line (producer Ava DuVernay for CBS) and The Good Fight (starring Christine Baranski). She holds commissions from Denver Center Theatre Company and The Old Vic in London. She will be recording a new play for Audible and is currently writing a screenplay about Sojourner Truth. Her playwright credits also include: Bread (Edgerton Award, WaterTower Theatre), Crowns (four Helen Hayes Awards, including Best Director), Oo-Bla-Dee (Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award), Drowning Crow (Broadway, MTC), The Trinity River Plays (Edgerton Foundation Award) and stop.reset (Signature Theatre Residency Five). Ms. Taylor received the Denzel Washington Endowed Chair Fordham University at Lincoln Center. An Artistic Associate of Goodman Theatre, she is its most produced playwright. She was a Signature Theater New York City Residency Five playwright. For her TV role as Lily Harper in I’ll Fly Away, she received a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress, three NAACP Image Awards and two Emmy Award nominations.  Her other television roles include The Unit. Taylor was Masterpiece Theatre’s first African American lead in Cora Unashamed, starred as Anita Hill in HBO’s Strange Justice (Gracie Award) and in A Good Day to Die starring Sidney Poitier. She has co-starred in USA Networks’ Dig and guest starred in Elementary and The Blacklist. Her film credits include Saturday Church, The Negotiator, Courage Under Fire, Clockers, and Lean on Me. Taylor was also the first Black woman to play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet on Broadway. Taylor has received honorary doctorates from Columbia College, DePaul University and Lake Forest College, and a Distinguished Alumnae Award from Southern Methodist University.

Diedre L. Murray is an innovative composer, musician, producer and curator. From the 1970’s through early 90’s, she pioneered the use of the cello as a jazz music instrument. She is a Pulitzer Prize finalist for the chamber opera Running Man and a two-time Obie winner for Running Man and for Eli’s Comin’. She’s collaborated extensively with Music Theatre Group and Diane Paulus. Works include Fangs, Best of Both Worlds and You Don’t Miss the Water. She wrote the arrangements for the Tony Award-winning The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Ms. Murray has composed for pieces written and/or produced by Lynn Nottage, Carl Hancock Rux, Kathryn Walker, Cornelius Eady, The Roots, Blondell Cummings, Risa Jaroslaw and Marcus Gardley, among others.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson returns to Two River, where he directed August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Two Trains Running, and Jitney and his own world-premiere play, Your Blues Ain’t Sweet Like Mine. He Broadway production of Jitney won Tony, Drama Desk, Drama League, New York Drama Critics’ Circle, and Outer Critics Circle Awards. He recently directed and performed his Obie Award-winning solo show Lackawanna Blues at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles; his screenplay for the HBO adaptation received the Humanitas Prize, Christopher Award, National Board of Review Honors, and NAACP Image Award, and Emmy, Golden Globe, and Writers Guild of America nominations. Santiago-Hudson made his directorial debut with Gem of the Ocean (McCarter Theatre and American Conservatory Theater). His other recent directing credits include Othello (Delacorte Theater); two world premieres by Dominique Morisseau, Skeleton Crew (Atlantic) and Paradise Blue (Williamstown); Athol Fugard’s My Children! My Africa!, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars and The First Breeze of Summer (all for Signature Theatre Company, where he was an Associate Artist 2008-2009); Quiara Alegria Hudes’ The Happiest Song Plays Last (for Second Stage); Things of Dry Hours (New York Theatre Workshop); and Radio Golf (Kennedy Center). Santiago-Hudson made his Broadway acting debut in Jelly’s Last Jam. His performance in Seven Guitars earned him the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. His recent theater performances include August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned (Signature Theatre), Stick Fly (Broadway), A Winter’s Tale (NYSF), and Gem of the Ocean (Broadway). He was seen on TV in the ABC show Castle as Captain Roy Montgomery for three seasons and most recently on the AMC Drama Low Winter Sun; his other TV credits include: The Family, Billions, Public Morals, The Good Wife, Low Winter Sun, Person of Interest, Forgotten Genius, The West Wing, Law & Order The Red Sneakers, Solomon and Sheba, Rear Window. His film credits include Selma, Their Eyes Were Watching God, American Gangster, Shaft, Devil’s Advocate, and Domestic Disturbance, among many others.  He has been honored with numerous awards, including three Obies, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Dramalogue, Joe A. Calloway Directing Award, Clarence Derwent, and Helen Hayes Awards, the Distinguished Alumni Award from Wayne State University, AUDELCO Awards, a Black Filmmaker’s Award, and an HBO Arts Festival Theater Award. He is the recipient of Honorary Doctorate degrees from both Buffalo State College and Wayne State University. The Ruben Santiago-Hudson Fine Arts Learning Center in Lackawanna, New York was named in his honor.

Kenneth L. Roberson Broadway choreography credits include Avenue Q,  All Shook Up and John Leguizamo’s Freak. He choreographed Purlie for City Center Encores!. Off-Broadway choreography credits of note: A Boy and His Soul (Lucille Lortel nominee), George C. Wolfe’s Harlem Song (Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk nominations), Seven Guitars and The Piano Lesson, both at Second Stage. He directed and choreographed Wycliffe Gordon’s Jazz á la Carte. Regional theater credits as ­director/choreographer: Nina Simone: Four Women (Northlight Theatre, 2019); Lettin’ the Good Times Roll (Victory Gardens, 2017); Ethel (Alliance Theatre, 2016); Crowns, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill and Ain’t Misbehavin’  (all at Arena Stage); Frog Kiss (Virginia Stage); Once on This Island (Baltimore Center Stage); Spunk  (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park). Regional theater credits as choreographer: Ragtime (Marriott Lincolnshire, 2018); Ray (Pasadena Playhouse); The Color Purple (Alliance Theatre, world premiere); Guys and Dolls, Thunder Knocking on the Door (both at Arena Stage). Film: HBO’s Lackawanna Blues, Preaching to the Choir, Brother to Brother and John Leguizamo’s House of Buggin’ for Fox (primetime Emmy Award nominee for best choreography). He is currently Professor of Practice at Indiana University, Theatre, Drama and Contemporary Dance Department. Productions at IU as director and choreographer: Urinetown, Sweet Charity and Dames at Sea. Director: Into the Woods and The Drowsy Chaperone. Kenneth teaches workshops specializing in the Black Vernacular of social and theatre dance nationally and internationally. Also a performance artist and writer, Kenneth’s one-person shows have played the New York Public Theater, Joe’s Pub, Triad Theatre, and Baltimore Center Stage. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia’s Henry Grady School of Journalism.

Carol Maillard is an actress, singer-songwriter, producer and poet. She has performed on and Off-Broadway (Eubie, Don’t Get God Started, Comin’ Uptown, Home, It’s So Nice To Be Civilized, Beehive, Forever My Darling); with the Negro Ensemble Company (Home, Zooman and the Sign, Colored People’s Time, The Great Mac Daddy) and the New York Shakespeare Festival (Spunk, Caucasian Chalk Circle, Under Fire, A Photograph…); and in Ntozake Shange’s Betsey Brown at the American Musical Theatre Festival and also at the Actors Studio (Hunter). She can be seen in the feature films Beloved and Thirty Years to Life. On television, Carol has appeared in For Colored Girls… and Halleluiah! (PBS); Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order. Carol is a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock. Her memorable rendition of Motherless Child, arranged for Sweet Honey, is featured in the motion picture The Visit and the Dorothy Height documentary We Are Not Vanishing. Carol was Conceptual Producer for the PBS’ American Masters film Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice!, which chronicled its 30^th Anniversary. She also produced the accompanying live soundtrack recording for the film. In 2014 she produced the group’s 40th Anniversary stage production Forty and Fierce. As a vocalist, she has had the privilege of recording with Horace Silver, Betty Buckley, and on the SYDA Foundations inspirational recording Sounds of Light. Also a writer, in 2003 her poem H2O Flow was featured as the opening selection of Marjorie Ryerson’s photo/poetry book Water Music. Maillard composed Time to Get Ready with Louise Robinson for Regina Taylor’s production of Crowns at the Goodman in 2012; the show was also produced at the McCarter and Long Wharf. She lives in Manhattan and is the mother of Jordan Maillard Ware, a Morehouse graduate, violinist/composer and producer. It is an honor and privilege to be a part of this marvelous production! Grateful. SGMKJ!

Michael Carnahan previously designed The Ballad of Little Jo, Your Blues Ain’t Sweet Like Mine, Third, On Borrowed Time, and August Wilson’s Seven Guitars and Two Trains Running at Two River. Off-Broadway—Atlantic Theater Company: Skeleton Crew; 59E59: I and You; Second Stage: The Happiest Song Plays Last; Signature Theatre: The Piano Lesson, The First Breeze of Summer; Life Could Be a Dream, The Marvelous Wonderettes, Three Mo’ Tenors, Pygmalion, Howie the Rookie, Brando. Tours—Cheers, Live On Stage; A Christmas Story The Musical, Peter & The Starcatcher. Regional credits include Mark Taper Forum, Arena Stage, American Conservatory Theater, The Kennedy Center, McCarter Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Baltimore Center Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Pasadena Playhouse, Two River Theatre, Chautauqua Theater Company, Cleveland Play House, Detroit Public Theater, Laguna Playhouse, Utah Shakespearean Festival, Northlight Theatre, Signature Theatre, Bucks County Playhouse, Ogunquit Playhouse, Arsht Center, Musical Theatre West, San Jose Repertory, Center Repertory. michaelcarnahandesign.com Instagram: Carnypics Twitter: @mike_carnahan

KAREN PERRY (Costume Designer) previously designed August Wilson’s King Hedley II, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Jitney, Two Trains Running, Seven Guitars and Radio Golf at Two River, as well as Love in Hate Nation, Oo-Bla-Dee, Lives of Reason, Your Blues Ain’t Sweet Like Mine, Guadalupe in the Guest Room, Third and Trouble in Mind. Her most recent credits include Run-Boy-Run & In Old Age (New York Theatre Workshop), Mothers (Playwrights Realm), Jazz (MTC), Lackawanna Blues with Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Mark Taper Forum), Fun Home (Baltimore Center Stage), Steel Magnolias, Hair, Dreamgirls (DTC), Oklahoma! (Houston Ballet at TUTS) and Cinderella Ballet (Eglevsky Ballet Company). Other credits include Danai Gurira’s Familiar (Woolly Mammoth, Guthrie, Seattle Rep), Cabin in the Sky (Encores!), Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky (Pasadena Playhouse), John Grisham’s A Time to Kill, dir. Ethan McSweeny (Arena), Crowns, stop. reset, Trinity River Trilogy by Regina Taylor (Goodman, STC, DTC/Arena), The Trip to Bountiful, Walter Mosley’s The Fall of Heaven, dir. Marion McClinton (Cincinnati Playhouse), The Brother/Sister Plays by Tarell McCraney, dirs. Tina Landau and Robert O’Hara (The Public/McCarter), Having Our Say by Emily Mann (McCarter), and Resurrection by Daniel Beaty (Arena). She has designed every play in August Wilson’s American Century Cycle except Fences. Film/TV credits include Gregory Hines Show, Saturday Night Live, and The Brother from Another Planet by director John Sayles. Wine in the Wildness is proudly Karen’s 14th production with TRTC. Currently: Raisin in the Sun @ the Public Theater.

Jane Cox Designs for Ruben Santiago-Hudson include Othello in Central Park, August Wilson’s Seven Guitars and Gem of the Ocean and the recent Broadway production of Jitney. Jane’s designs are currently represented by the Broadway production of King Lear and the new musical of The Secret Life of Bees at the Atlantic Theater. Other recent productions include True West and the musicals Amelie and Color Purple on Broadway, as well as a theatrical adaptation of Between the World and Me at the Apollo.  Jane is a 20-year member of the Monica Bill Barnes Dance Company, has been nominated for several Drama Desk Awards and two Tony Awards, and is the director of the Program in Theater at Princeton University.

Jane Shaw previously designed El Coquí Espectacular and the Bottle of Doom, The Women of Padilla, Lives of Reason, Guadalupe in the Guest Room and Pinkolandia at Two River Theater. New York credits include I Was Most Alive with You (Playwrights Horizons); Actually (MTC, Williamstown Theatre Festival); Measure for Measure (Theatre for a New Audience); Ironbound (Rattlestick/Women’s Project); En el tiempo de las Mariposas (Repertorio Español) and 30 productions with the Mint. Regional credits include The Royale  (Cleveland Play House); Caroline, or Change (Tantrum Theater); Rear Window, Breath and Imagination (Hartford Stage); They Promised Her the Moon (Old Globe) and productions at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Mark Taper Forum, ACT, and with the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Next: Annie Get Your Gun at Bay Street, Into the Breeches at Cleveland Play House. Recognition: Bessie Award, Henry Award, Drama Desk, Premios ACE 2012, two Connecticut Critics Circle Awards, Meet the Composer grant, Theatre Communications Group’s Career Development Program, and nominations for three Lortels, Henry Hewes and Elliot Norton Awards. She was born in Kansas and lives in Brooklyn.

Alex Basco Koch Broadway: Be More Chill, Irena’s Vow. Off-Broadway: Buyer & Cellar (North American Tour; Menier Chocolate Factory; Barrow Street; Rattlestick); Fireflies (Atlantic); I Was Most Alive With You (Playwrights Horizons); The Liquid Plain (Signature; Oregon Shakespeare Festival); GOODBAR (The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival). Regional: El Coquí Espectacular and the Bottle of Doom, Pinkolandia (Two River Theater); Indecent (The Guthrie); The Who’s Tommy (Denver Center); Approval Junkie, Tiger Style (Alliance; Huntington Theatre Company); Pride & Prejudice, Marley (Baltimore Center Stage); Invisible Man (Court Theatre, Chicago; Studio Theatre, Washington DC; Huntington Theatre Company); ReEntry (Baltimore Center Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Roundhouse Theatre). Concert: The Magnetic Fields 50 Song Memoir.

Kevin Massey With composer Diedre Murray: Best of Both Worlds (dir. Diane Paulus, ART, Women’s Project Theater, Music-Theatre Group), Blackamoor Angel (writer Carl Hancock Rux, Joe’s Pub, Public Theater/Bard Festival), Sweet Billy & the Zooloos (writer Lynn Nottage, Colored Girl Productions) Another Country (dir. Diane Paulus, Columbia University), The Voice Within (writer Marcus Gardley, Harlem Stage), The Iliad & The Odyssey (adapter Kathryn Walker), additional work for The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (Broadway Revival). Other work includes The Lion, the Unicorn and Me (music by Jeanine Tesori, libretto by J.D. McClatchy, Washington National Opera/Glimmerglass), Blizzard on Marblehead Neck (music by Jeanine Tesori, libretto by Tony Kushner, Glimmerglass). www.kevinmassey.com

J. Jared Janas (he/him) (Wig, Hair, & Makeup Design) At TRT: Love in Hate Nation and Oo-Bla-Dee. Broadway: Purlie Victorious, Good Night, Oscar, Sweeney Todd…, Ohio State Murders, & Juliet, Kimberly Akimbo, Topdog Underdog, How I Learned to Drive, American Buffalo, Jagged Little Pill, Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, Gettin’ the Band Back Together, Bandstand, Indecent, Sunset Boulevard, The Visit, The Real Thing, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, Motown, Peter and the Starcatcher, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, All about Me. Recent Off Broadway: My Broken Language, Between the Lines, Prayer for the French Republic, The Tap Dance Kid. Recent TV: “And Just Like That” and “The Gilded Age.”

Binder Casting was founded by Jay Binder, CSA in 1984. Binder Casting has cast over 80 Broadway productions, dozens of National Tours, Off-Broadway shows, full seasons for over 25 regional theaters, as well as feature films, episodic television and commercials. Binder has also cast for Encores! at New York City Center since its inception in 1994. Sdditionally, the office was featured in the documentary, Every Little Step. Binder Casting is a 12-time recipient of the Artios Award for excellence in casting. Part of RWS Entertainment Group. Staff: Jay Binder, CSA, Mark Brandon, CSA, Chad Eric Murnane, CSA, Sarah Cooney, Kyle Coker, Anthony Pichette and Jarrett Reiche. www.bindercasting.com

Larry Copeland is very happy to return to Two River Theater during these challenging times. Previously he was part of the Stage Management teams for Twelfth Night, Oo-Bla-Dee, Lives of Reason, and Henry V. Broadway: Leap of Faith; Off Broadway: Exit Strategy; In Canada: Lion King, I Am My Own Wife, Evangeline, Anne of Green Gables, Two years of touring with Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia through the US, Canada, and China. Larry would like to thank Sue, Sybil, and CC for all their love and support.

Mark Dobrow Roundabout: Merrily We Roll Along (Fiasco), The Robber Bridegroom, Into the Woods (Fiasco), Machinal. Broadway: Bandstand, The Illusionists: Turn of the Century (2016) and Live On Broadway (2015), Holler If Ya Hear Me, End of the Rainbow, Mary Poppins, Ring of Fire, Miss Saigon, Phantom of the Opera. Arena Stage: Dave (2018). Paper Mill Playhouse: The Bandstand, White Christmas. Atlantic Theater Company: Found. Lincoln Center Theater: Thou Shalt Not, In The Summer House.