Gleam

January 04–February 05

Gleam
By Bonnie Lee Moss Rattner
Based on Their Eyes Were Watching God
BY ZORA NEALE HURSTON
DIRECTED BY MARION MCCLINTON

At 16, Janie faces a marriage of convenience and a life of quiet drudgery. Instead, she embarks on a journey that brings successes and losses enough for several lifetimes—a passage to fulfillment so singular that it manages to speak for all of our dreams. This soaring saga brings to life the vivid characters of Zora Neale Hurston’s beloved novel, a shining jewel of the Harlem Renaissance by one of America’s literary giants.

Digital Dramaturgy

Cast

Axel Avin, Jr.*
Jody Starks/Ed Dockerty

Stephanie Berry*
Pheoby Watson

Brooks Edward Brantly*
Tea Cake

Thomas Jefferson Byrd*
Logan Killicks/Sam Watson

Christiana Clark*
Janie

Erik LaRay Harvey*
Hezekiah/Sop-de-Bottom

Tonia M. Jackson*
Lulu Moss/Nanny

Celeste Jones*
Daisy Blunt/Nunkie

Gavin Lawrence*
Amos Hicks/Johnny Taylor/Lias

Jaime Lincoln Smith*
Lige Moss/Bootny

Baltimore Center Stage: Wild with Happy, Gleam. Regional— The Guthrie: The Bluest Eyes; Yale Repertory Theater: Seven Guitars. TV—Upcoming: Luke Cage, The Last OG; she appeared on Bull, Blacklist, Blue Bloods, Louie, Broad City, and all the Law and Order programs. Film—Submission, OG, The Delivery Man, Invasions, No Reservations, Finding Forrester. Awards/Accolades—She is a recipient of an Obie Award for her one-woman show, The Shaneequa Chronicles and the TCG/Fox Fellowship as a Distinguished Artist. Other— She appears in Mississippi, Sassafras and Myrrh with her storytelling company. She’s a founder of Blackberry Productions, a Harlem-based company that develops new works and brings theater to underserved populations. As a playwright, Stephanie’s new musical play, Sarah Sings a Love Story, was selected as one of the 10 Best New Jersey Theater Productions of 2017. Special thanks to Marshall Jones and Crossroads Theatre.

Baltimore Center Stage: Gleam, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Trouble in Mind , Elmina’s Kitchen. Broadway—Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Toledo, Theatre World Award/Tony nom). Regional—Yale Rep: Death of a Salesman; True Colors: The Amen Corner; Arizona Theatre Co./ATL/Portland Center Stage: Crowns; ATL: Gem of the Ocean; San Diego Rep: Spunk; Indiana Rep: Two Trains Running, The Piano Lesson, Flyin’ West, Hamlet, Miss Evers’ Boys; A.C.T.: Good Boys (Thomas, dir. Jon Jory); Oregon Shakespeare: The Darker Face of the Earth; Alliance Theatre; San Jose Rep; San Diego Rep. Film/TV—Ray, Bamboozled, Bulworth, Clockers (dir. Spike Lee), Get on the Bus (dir. Spike Lee), He Got Game, Set It Off, MacArthur Park (Sundance nom), Lackawanna Blues (HBO), Living Single, Mama Flora’s Family, Passing Glory, Boycott, Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Education—MFA, California Institute of the Arts.

Baltimore Center Stage: Gleam. Off Broadway—59E59: Pure Confidence. Regional—Goodman: The Trinity River Plays (world premiere, dir. Ethan McSweeny); Guthrie/Pillsbury House: In the Red and Brown Water (dir. Marion McClinton), Bulrusher (title role); Ten Thousand Things: IL Campiello, Othello, Endgame (dir. Marion McClinton); Park Square: Constant Star; Penumbra Theatre: Blue (dir. Lou Bellamy), A Raisin in the Sun. Film—Stuck Between Stations. Awards—Ivey Award ’06 Emerging Actress of the Twin Cities, ’09 CityPages Best Actress (Twin Cities). Education—The American Academy of Dramatic Arts West.

Baltimore Center Stage: Gleam. Off Broadway—White Chocolate; The Exonerated; The Culture Project: Where’s My Money; MTC: Streetcar Named Desire; NYTW: Othello; Shakespeare in the Park: Unrequited Love, Fear Itself. Regional—Fences; Playmaker’s Rep: Intimate Apparel; Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Moot the Messenger; Humana Festival: My Children…My Africa; Yale Rep: 7 Guitars; Alliance: The Piano Lessons; San Jose Rep: Ooh Blah Dee; Sundance Theatre Lab: Home; NJPac: A Few Good Men; Syracuse Stage: Spunk; Fulton Opera House. Film/TV—The 22, Boardwalk Empire, Brotherhood, Everyday People, Marci X, Rounders, Caveman’s Valentine, Twister, Proud, K-Pax, Max and Grace, Law & Order, L&O: SVU, L&O: CI, NYPD Blue, Third Watch, Now and Again, The Clubhouse, The Jury, Another World. Education—NYU. For my peeps.

Baltimore Center Stage: Gleam. Off Broadway—Pan Asian Rep: Monster. Regional—American Stage: Frankie and Johnny; Alliance Theatre Co: Gem of the Ocean, Radio Golf, The Nacirema Society Requests; Horizon Theatre Co: And Her Hair Went With Her, Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery; Penumbra Theatre Co: company member for 15 years, The Piano Lesson, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, King Hedley II, Waiting in Vain, Flying West, for colored girls…, Seven Guitars; Guthrie Theatre; Steppenwolf; Magic Theatre; Lorraine Hansberry Theatre; Pillsbury House; Mixed Blood Theatre; Theatrical Outfit; True Colors Theatre Co. Film/TV— Zero Street, A Chance of Snow, Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns and House of Payne. To God be the Glory.

Baltimore Center Stage: Gleam. Off Broadway—59E59 Theaters: Pure Confidence (dir. Marion McClinton). Regional—Goodman: Dartmoor Prison, The Good Negro; Guthrie: King Lear, Blood Wedding, A Christmas Carol, Julius Caesar, Black no More, In the Red and Brown Water, Dream on Monkey Mountain, Many Colors Make the Thunder-King; ETC: Thurgood; Arena Stage: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Black No More; Mixed Blood Theatre: Flags, Boy, Birth of the Boom, Pure Confidence, Ruined, Fires in the Mirror, Salt Fish and Bakes; Cincinnati Playhouse: Pure Confidence; Kennedy Center: Project Liberty; City Theatre: Spunk, Birth of the Boom; Kansas City Rep: Blood Wedding; CTC: The Beggar’s Strike, Anon(ymous); Penumbra: The Mighty Gents, The Mojo and the Sayso, Three Ways Home, On the Open Road, Black Nativity, Everlasting Arms, Two Trains Running, Waiting in Vain, Buffalo Hair; Alabama Shakespeare Festival: Pure Confidence; Denver Center Theatre Company: Pure Confidence; Florida Studio Theatre: Pure Confidence. Film/TV—The Promise, Justice, Joe Somebody, Listen, Wine in the Wilderness, Macbeth. Awards—2009 Audelco for Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor; Lorraine Hansberry Award for Best Writing of a Play by Black Theatre Alliance; Outstanding Alumnus, Howard University.

Baltimore Center Stage: Marley, Gleam. Broadway—Holler If Ya Hear Me. Other New York—Manhattan Theatre Club: Ruined; The Lark Play Development Center: Skeleton Crew; Classical Theatre of Harlem: Seed; National Black Theatre: The Last Saint on Sugar Hill; The Wild Project: Paradox of the Urban Cliché; Billie Holiday Theatre: Birthright; 45 Bleeker St.: Lights Rise on Grace. Regional—Luna Stage, NJ: Carnaval; Arena Stage; Steppenwolf. Film/TV—Blue Bloods, Law and Order, NYC 2-2, The Knights of Prosperity, 11:55 Holyoke, Respect the Jux, Remember the Titans. Jaime hails from Bloomfield, CT, with roots going back to Jamaica. He is dedicating the whole run of this show to his late father Lennox Lincoln Smith aka Ras Len I.

Creative Team

Marion McClinton
Director

David Gallo
Scenic Designer

ESOSA
Costume Designer

Michael Wangen
Lighting Designer

Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen
Original Music and Sound Designers

Gavin Witt
Dramaturg

Lewis Shaw
Fight Choreographer

Evamarii A. Johnson
Dialect Consultant

Pat McCorkle
Casting Director

Laura Smith*
Stage Manager

Captain Kate Murphy*
Assistant Stage Manager

Raine Bode*
Assistant Stage Manager

Baltimore Center Stage: Gleam, Elmina’s Kitchen, A Raisin in the Sun, Les Blancs, Jitney, Seven Guitars, Two Trains Running, Splash Hatch on the E Going Down, Day of Absence, Thunder Knocking on the Door, Police Boys (also author), readings of Drowning Crow for Vivat! and Intimate Apparel for First Look. Broadway—credits include Drowning Crow; Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; King Hedley II (Tony nomination). Off Broadway—credits include Jitney (Obie and Lortel Awards); Roar; Talk; Breath, Boom. International— Royal National Theatre, London:Jitney (Olivier Award, Best Play). Regional—Goodman Theatre/Mark Taper Forum: Gem of the Ocean (world premiere). Playwright— Police Boys, Walkers, Stones and Bones, Who Causes the Darkness? Mr. McClinton is an Associate Artist at Center Stage as well as at Mark Taper Forum, Playwrights Horizons, and Pillsbury House Theatre, and is an alumnus of New Dramatists.

Baltimore Center Stage: Marley, Gleam, Once on this Island. Broadway—Motown: The Musical, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (Tony nom), Topdog/Underdog (also London and various regional theaters). Off Broadway—Second Stage: By the Way, Meet Vera Stark; Delacorte: The Capeman; Public Theater: Juan and John,Father Comes Home from the Wars, Romeo and Juliet, The Story, Radiant Baby; NYTW: The Misanthrope, All That I Will Ever Be, The Seven; Second Stage Theatre: Trust, Crowns, Birdie Blue, Living Out. Other New York—Radio City Spring Spectacular. Regional—Arena Stage: Ruined, Cuttin’ Up, Señor Discretion Himself; Alliance: Twist (LA Ovation Award); A.R.T.: Witness Uganda, O.P.C., Best of Both Worlds; Oregon Shakespeare Festival: American Night; Geva Theatre: Fences; Berkeley Rep: The Blue Door; Bay Street Theatre: Turandot: The Rumble for the Ring, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Pippin, Once on this Island. Awards—include the 2006 TDF/Irene Sharaff Young Master Award and the 2003 Audelco Award. Mr. Sosa is also a Project RunwaySeason 7 Finalist.

Baltimore Center Stage: Gleam. Off Broadway— 59E59: Pure Confidence. Regional—Guthrie: In the Red and Brown Water, Fences, The Darker Face of Earth, Blackbird; Trinity Rep: Yellowman, Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers; Children’s Theatre Co.: Bud, Not Buddy; Alabama Shakespeare Festival: The Fula from America; Spoleto Festival USA: The Fula from America. Film— Stage lighting supervisor for A Prairie Home Companion (dir. Robert Altman). Other— Lighting designer for Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion radio show. Resident designer with the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, MN; 30 years of design experience in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.

Baltimore Center Stage: Gleam, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, These Shining Lives, A Raisin in the Sun, Dinah Was, Jitney. Broadway—Music & Sound: The Miracle Worker, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Speed of Darkness; Music: My Thing of Love; Sound: Superior Donuts, reasons to be pretty, A Year with Frog and Toad, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Hollywood Arms, King Hedley II, Buried Child, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, The Song of Jacob Zulu, The Grapes of Wrath. Off Broadway—Playwrights Horizons; Vineyard; MTC; MCC; Union Square; Second Stage; Public; NYSF; Minetta Lane. International— London: Comedy Theatre, Barbican, National Theatre; Tel Aviv: Cameri Theater; Japan: Subaru Acting Co.; Toronto; Dublin; Galway; Perth; Sydney. Regional—Steppenwolf; Goodman; Alley; Alliance; Chicago Shakespeare; Guthrie; A.C.T. (S. F.); South Coast Rep; Mark Taper; McCarter; Papermill; Huntington; Hartford Stage; Long Wharf; Shakespeare (DC); Kennedy Center.

Director of Dramaturgy and Associate Director Gavin Witt came to Baltimore Center Stage in 2003, after nearly 15 years in Chicago as an actor, director, dramaturg, translator, and teacher—and co-founder of the classically based greasy joan & co theater. Among his translations and adaptations are a half-dozen Shakespeare plays, including a Jeff-nominated version of Pericles and the BCS production of As You Like It; Jeff-nominated translations of Beaumarchais’ The Barber of Seville and Ionesco’s Macbett; and the BCS adaptation of The Voysey Inheritance. A graduate of Yale and the University of Chicago, he is currently on the Humanities faculty at Peabody Conservatory, having previously taught at the University of Chicago, DePaul, and Towson; has served on the advisory boards of several theaters; and spent more than a decade as a regional vice president of LMDA, the national association of dramaturgs, before recently joining its board.

Baltimore Center Stage: Bus Stop, A Skull in Connemara, Gleam, The Rivals, Crime & Punishment,Snow Falling on Cedars. Broadway—Addams Family, Life in Theatre, Shrek, Pirate Queen, Aida, Scarlet Pimpernel, Tarzan. International—West End: Royal Family. Regional—Ben-Hur Live, Metropolitan Opera, Baltimore Opera, Washington Opera, Folger Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre. Fight Direction—Everyman Theatre: Private Lives, All My Sons, Mystery of Irma Vep, Filthy Rich, Much Ado About Nothing. Baltimore Opera—Romeo et Juliette, Otello, Elektra, Aida; Studio Theatre: Frozen, Mojo; Rep Stage: Bach at Leipzig, Lonesome West, Swan; Globe Theatre, London (Workshop Season); Shakespeare Theatre: Taming of the Shrew; over 40 episodes of America’s Most Wanted. Film/TV—Killer Joe, Death Games. Other Professional—Weapons and Specialty Prop Design; Certified Teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors and on faculty for the Opera Studio at University of Maryland, College Park.

Baltimore Center Stage: Clybourne Park, Beneatha’s Place, Gleam. Regional—Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Eight seasons, credits include To Kill a Mockingbird, She Loves Me, Ruined, Death and the King’s Horseman, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Gem of the Ocean, Tracy’s Tiger, Intimate Apparel, Bus Stop, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Napoli Milionaria!, A Raisin in the Sun, Force of Nature, Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Dell’Arte International Theatre: Paradise Lost, The Iliad, Peer Gynt: The Liar/Logneren (in cooperation with Denmark’s Jomfru Ane Teatret); Illinois Shakespeare Festival: Henry V, Cymbeline, She Stoops to Conquer, Measure for Measure, The Merry Wives of Windsor, King Lear; Philadelphia Theatre Company: The Mountaintop; New Harlem Arts Theatre (NYC): Flying Folktales. Other professional— Co-author of Page to Stage: Julius Caesar, which won the 1991 Wilbur Schramm Award for Outstanding Instructional Television Series. Teaching—Cal Arts, California State Summer School for the Arts, Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, Cornell University, Illinois State University, Northwestern University, Semester at Sea (The Institute for Shipboard Education). Member— AEA, SAG, Canadian AEA, VASTA. Education— BFA, Howard University; post-graduate work, New York University; PhD, University of Washington.

Baltimore Center Stage: A Wonder in My Soul, King of the Yees, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, SOUL The Stax Musical, Mobile Unit Twelfth Night, Animal Farm, Skeleton Crew, Lookingglass Alice, The Christians, Jazz, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Detroit ’67, As You Like It, Pride and Prejudice, Marley, One Night in Miami…, Amadeus, Wild with Happy, Twelfth Night, A Civil War Christmas. Broadway—Amazing Grace, On the Town, End of the Rainbow, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus, She Loves Me, Blood Brothers, A Few Good Men, etc. Off-Broadway—Clever Little Lies, Dr. Ruth, Stalking the Bogeyman, Freud’s Last Session, Tribes, Our Town, Almost Maine and Driving Miss Daisy. Over 50 regional theaters—Guthrie, George Street Theatre, Connecticut Rep, Pittsburgh Public, Barrington Stage. Over 60 films—Senior Moment, Year by the Sea, Child of Grace, Premium Rush, Ghost Town, Secret Window, Tony and Tina’s Wedding, The Thomas Crown Affair, The 13th Warrior, Madeline, Die Hard III, School Ties. TV/Web—Planned Parenthood series Talkin’ About, Twisted, Sesame Street, Californication (Emmy nom), Max Bickford, Hack, Strangers with Candy, Barbershop, Chappelle’s Show. mccorklecasting.com

Baltimore Center Stage: Detroit ’67, As You Like It; 4000 Miles; After the Revolution; It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play; Amadeus; Wild with Happy; Twelfth Night; Stones in His Pockets; dance of the holy ghosts; Clybourne Park; Beneatha’s Place; The Mountaintop; Bus Stop; An Enemy of the People; The Whipping Man; Gleam; The Rivals; Snow Falling on Cedars; Cyrano; Working it Out; Fabulation or, The Re-Education of Undine; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Regional—Shakespeare Theater Company: Salome; Contemporary American Theater Festival: World Builders; Everyman: Pygmalion, Shipwrecked, The Exonerated, Rabbit Hole, Doubt, Gem of the Ocean, And a Nightingale Sang, The School for Scandal, A Number, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, Yellowman; Woolly Mammoth: Gruesome Playground Injuries, House of Gold, The Unmentionables, Vigils, After Ashley; Folger: Measure for Measure, Olney Theatre: Stuff Happens; Theater Alliance: Headsman’s Holiday, Pangea.

Baltimore Center Stage: One Night in Miami…, Next to Normal, Animal Crackers, Mud Blue Sky, The Mountaintop, …Edgar Allan Poe, A Skull in Connemara, American Buffalo, Crime & Punishment, Let There Be Love, The Santaland Diaries, The Importance of Being Earnest, Things of Dry Hours, Trouble in Mind, Three Sisters, Radio Golf, The Murder of Isaac, Once on This Island, King Lear. Regional—Trinity Rep: Boeing-Boeing; Actors Theatre of Louisville: All Hail Hurricane Gordo*, The Clean House, Moot the Messenger*, Dracula, The Ruby Sunrise*, Tall Grass Gothic*, The Drawer Boy, Amadeus, As You Like It (*premieres at the Humana Festival of New American Plays); Contemporary American Theater Festival: The Overwhelming, Pig Farm; Totem Pole Playhouse: Over 75 productions through 13 summer stock seasons. Film/TV—Route 30, Route 30 Too!, The Father and the Bear, Next Food Network Star. Professional—Director of Stage Management at Virginia Tech University. Proud Actors Equity and ASCAP Member. For Whitney – with love and gratitude.

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association

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Creative Team

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