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STUDY GUIDE
ANNIE BAKER WILL ENO ATHOL FUGARD BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS SUZAN-LORI PARKS
2016-17 SEASON
VENUS
Suzan-Lori Parks
DIRECTED BY Lear deBessonet
BY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Synopsis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Theatrical Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Interview with the Playwright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Further Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Cast & Creative Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Playwright Bio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Cast Bios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Creative Team Bios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Signature Spotlight Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
About Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
SYNOPSIS
A chorus recounts the life of Saartjie Baartman, a young woman who is persuaded to leave South Africa in the 19th century
in search of stardom and a better life, and who later became
known throughout Europe as The Hottentot Venus. We follow
Saartjie, a woman of the Khoikhoi tribe, as she signs a contract
to travel to Europe and star in the popular sideshows of England
and France. Put on display by the Mother-Showman, Saartjie
displays her ‘unusual’ dark skin color and large buttocks, fascinating the European crowds and capturing the attention of the
renowned scientist, The Baron Docteur. The Baron Docteur’s
offer of a more refined life for Saartjie sparks an intense relationship between the pair, one filled with affection and perhaps even
love. However, this relationship is ultimately complicated by The
Baron Docteur’s desire to use Saartjie as a specimen for scientific observation. Though Saartjie seeks fame and success in her
life as The Hottentot Venus, she finds herself to be an outsider,
misunderstood and exploited by European curiosity.
Poster advertising the exhibition of the Hottentot Venus.
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THEATRICAL CONTEXT
Suzan-Lori Parks continues her Signature residency with a new production
of Venus, which follows the extended Signature run of The Death of the Last
Black Man in the Whole Entire World AKA the Negro Book of the Dead. Read
an excerpt from Parks’s essay “The Rear End Exists” and historical context
behind Venus. Also, learn more about the events that surround the story.
AN EXCERPT FROM “THE REAR END EXISTS” BY SUZAN-LORI PARKS, 1996
Legend has it that when Josephine Baker hit Paris in the ‘20s, she “just wiggled
her fanny and all the French fell in love
with her.” This achievement should be
viewed in light of a deeper understanding, which is to say that there was a hell
of a lot behind that wiggling bottom.
Check it: Baker was from America and
left it; African-Americans are the bottom of the heap in America; we are at
the bottom on the bottom, practically
the bottom itself, and Baker rose to the
top by shaking her bottom. Josephine
Baker, bottom-shaker, does not merely
“uncover... a new region for desire,” is not
simply a “Jazz Cleopatra,” as her biographers have called her. Baker was American. Baker came from the bottom.
So, let us return to it.
bottom
BEhind
past tense
LedgeButt
Call me LedgeButt. When I was a kid
they did. Not a term of endearment,
of course. And to be sure uhhuhnn I
cried. Mom tried to smooth things over:
“Tuck,” she counseled. To tuck meant
to stand straight – very straight – to
try to hide the obvious prominence of
my back(ass)ward pointing bulb. Good
kids are not bad ass. There is the rump,
and I was desperately American.
Tuck is counterpoint to LedgeButt.
The rhythm of what it means to be a
good American: pulling in and moving
upward (putting men on the moon).
America is past-free; we rely on a swift
A political cartoon making a joke of comparing the Venus Hottentot and
William Grenville, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
The body of Saartjie on display.
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evaporation of the what was. We move
forward. And a protruding posterior is a
backward glance, a look which, in this country, draws no eyes. Has no place. No rest.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
See biography as geography – life story
as stomping ground. The body stands
vertical and works as a mobile axis on
which a world turns, by which we navigate our wants. To be a good American
you straighten it up and don’t look back.
You tuck. But the buttock is our largest muscle – larger than the heart. It is
cleaved into two halves, cupping us,
much like parentheses. In its middle, an
abyss. At the abyss’s center, the river’s
mouth: anus/eye, cyclops-like. Blood in
the stool means trouble. Insert a thermometer to learn the heat. Biography
is geography and the hide curves like
a shy hillside. The bear goes over the
mountain. No, the bear, he went – past
tense – and bore it. What do we make
of a country that denies us historical
referencing? Where can a consideration
of the buttock(s) lead us? Back back
back tuh that – hide and seek. Now find
thuh road but there ain’t no maps cause
you weren’t allowed tuh map none. What
do we make with the belief that the rear
end exists?
In Roman mythology, Venus is the goddess of love and beauty. The word Hottentot is a term applied by white Europeans
to the Khoikhoi peoples of South Africa
and Namibia. Europeans came to associate this term with savagery and barbarism
during the 17th and 18th centuries.
The region still uncharted, much as
this page.
CHARACTERS
The Venus Hottentot (Saartjie Baartman)
Saartjie Baartman (c. 1789-1815) was a
South African Khoikhoi woman who, after
being sold to a trader by Dutch settlers,
allegedly signed a contract with an English
surgeon to travel to England and Ireland
to work as a domestic servant and be exhibited for entertainment purposes. Baartman’s large buttocks and unusual coloring
made her the object of fascination by the
colonial Europeans who presumed that
they were racially superior. Her constant
display attracted the attention of Georges
Cuvier, a renowned French scientist, who
asked to study Baartman as a specimen.
Cuvier concluded that Baartman was
evidence of a link between animals and
humans. Baartman died in 1816 at the
estimated age of 26. Cuvier obtained her
remains from local police and dissected
her body. He made a plaster cast of her
body, pickled her brain and genitals and
placed them into jars which were placed
on display at the Musée de l’Homme until
1974. The story of Baartman resurfaced in
1981 when Stephen Jay Gould, a paleon-
Map of where the Khoikhoi people lived.
An unidentified Khoikhoi woman, late 1800s.
Anatomy of the human head.
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tologist, wrote about her story and criticized racial science. Following the African
National Congress’s victory in the South
African elections, President Nelson Mandela requested that the French return the
remains of Baartman so she could be laid
to rest. The process took eight years, but
finally, Baartman was brought back home
and buried at Hankey in the Eastern Cape
Province in 2002.
The Baron Docteur
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) was a celebrated French naturalist and anatomist. In
1819, he was made a Baron by King Louis
XVIII, in recognition of his many contributions to the natural sciences. As part of his
interest in human anatomy, he examined
and later dissected the body of Saartjie
Baartman.
The Negro Resurrectionist
Resurrectionists were commonly employed by anatomists in the United Kingdom during the 18th and 19th centuries
to exhume and steal the bodies of the
recently dead, for the purposes of dissection.
The Mother Showman
The word showman is a colloquial term,
originating from the 1700s, used to describe a person fulfilling a similar role to
that of a ringmaster or emcee. In the Victorian era, those running sideshows were
commonly referred to as showmen.
A TIMELINE OF MAJOR EVENTS
c. 1789 Baartman is born near the Gamtoos River, in what is now known as the
Eastern Cape, South Africa.
1807 British Parliament abolishes the slave
trade, making it illegal to engage in the
slave trade throughout the British colonies.
1810 Baartman is brought to London. Abolitionists object to Baartman’s display on
humanitarian grounds. In court Baartman
claims to have come to London of her own
free will. The case is dismissed.
1814 Baartman is exhibited in Paris by
animal trainer S. Réaux; the show causes a
sensation and runs for eighteen months.
Illustration of the nervous system of a man.
1815 Spring: Baartman is examined by professors of the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle.
1815 Winter: Baartman dies of an undetermined inflammatory ailment (possibly
smallpox/syphilis/pneumonia). Her body is
dissected by Georges Cuvier.
1816 On behalf of the Muséum d’Histoire
Naturelle, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire retains
Baartman’s corpse on the grounds that
it is a singular specimen of humanity and
therefore of special scientific interest.
1817 Georges Cuvier’s report on his dissection of Baartman is published in the Memoires du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle,
vol. iii.
A medical drawing of Saartjie Baartman’s post-mortem brain dissection.
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1833 Slavery is abolished in the British Empire.
1937 Baartman’s remains are moved to the
newly-founded Musée de l’Homme, where
they will be displayed until 1976.
2002 Baartman’s remains are returned to
South Africa for burial.
HUMAN WONDERS
Teratology: (noun) the scientific study of
congenital abnormalities and abnormal
formations.
The study of teratology was founded on a
few principles determined by a French naturalist, which set the ground rules for the general classifications of human abnormalities:
”All possible monsters can be reduced to
three categories: the first is that of mon-
Conjoined twin brothers, Chang and Eng Bunker.
sters by addition, the second, monsters
by omission, and the third, those that are
such by reason of the reversal or wrong
positioning of parts.” – C.L.L. de Buffon,
Varieties of the Human Species, Of Monsters (1749)
his bread and butter as such. Rather, he
used more distinguished terms, such as
“living wonders” and “human curiosities,”
along with extended grandiose phrases to
enhance his performers’ status and show
them respect. On Names
These are a few of Barnum’s flamboyant
phrases:
While often colloquially referred to as
“freaks” and “freak shows,” the performers in such exhibits have historically had a
complicated relationship with terminology.
P.T. Barnum, the American showman who
ran one of the largest exhibitions of “human wonders,” had a very specific stance
on naming:
Barnum’s “Freak”-less Phraseology (an
excerpt from American Side Show by Marc
Hartzman):
Parliament of Peculiar and Puzzling Physical Phenomena and Prodigies
Colossal Continental Congress of Curious
Creatures
Weird and Winsome Wonders of the
Wide, Wide World
Peerless Prodigies of Physical Phenomena
and Great Presentation of Marvelous Living Human Curiosities
Barnum made a fortune off the exhibition of freaks, but he never referred to
Illustration of Chang and Eng Bunker.
Irene Woodward, a tattooed performer.
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INTERVIEW WITH THE PLAYWRIGHT
At a cocktail party in the mid-nineties, Residency One playwright Suzan-Lori
Parks had recently finished an essay about Josephine Baker called “The Rear End
Exists,” when she overheard someone talking about another black woman whose
derriere was well-known: Saartjie Baartman, the so-called “Venus Hottentot” who
lived part of her life as a popular exhibit in the London and Paris sideshows of the
1810s, and who was a peripheral figure in a play Parks was writing. That snippet
of conversation sparked what would become a whole new play, Venus – Parks’
fantastical retelling of Baartman’s tragic life, which fellow Signature playwright
Tony Kushner has described as “acknowledging the tragic, the immutable, while
not extinguishing the possibility of mutation, of change.” In the middle of a busy
month where she juggled multiple writing commitments (she has movies, musicals, and television shows in the works) alongside preparing for rehearsals with
director Lear deBessonet, Parks sat down to chat with Literary Manager Jenna
Clark Embrey about Baartman, The Bachelorette, and how the play Venus came
into being.
How did you start writing Venus?
I was writing a play about something
else and she was one of the characters. I overheard somebody talking
about her at a cocktail party, “Oh this
historical person, Saartjie Baartman,
the Hottentot Venus.” It was like a bell
went off, “ding ding ding ding ding!”
I realized that’s who should be at the
center of the play. So I did a lot of
research, sitting around the library at
the time because it was 1990-whatever and internet wasn’t really a thing,
so we had to go to the library. I read
everything I could about her and then
a lot of autopsy reports of people like
her and a lot about “freaks,” and freak
shows like that. But still, it wasn’t
really coming together. Then I had a
Rockefeller Foundation fellowship at
the Bellagio Center on Lake Como.
Really beautiful place. So I took all
(Top and Bottom) Photos of Suzan-Lori Parks by Gregory Costanzo.
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the notes and everything and I spent
the first three weeks basically hitting
my head against the wall because it
just wasn’t happening. I did everything I
could. I had a draft already but it wasn’t
right. It wasn’t the story. It was like I was
trying to find the key to a lock, it wasn’t
turning – you know? I don’t know how
to explain it. I can make any draft better,
but I know when it’s not the right road.
It was just not the right way to tell the
story, so I was trying to find the right
way to tell the story. Just weeks and
weeks and weeks sitting at my desk at
this beautiful villa. And then the residency runs out, it was only three weeks or a
month long and so I said, “Okay, great.
I only have one more week, oh well.”
I was like having conversations with
myself and Saartjie. I’d say, “Just tell me.
Anything. Just give me something. I just
need one thing.” I was listening to three
pieces of music in rotation, which was
John Coltrane’s Blue Train, Bach’s The
Goldberg Variations by Glenn Gould, and
then Madonna’s The Immaculate Collection. Those were my three pieces of
music, over and over. Every song, every
beat, every tune, every note, everything.
And finally one day I heard this and
thought “Ah, I got something.” It was
the line: “He gave me a haircut.” That
was the first line. And I knew the whole
story right then. And it didn’t come out
of research, it just came out of listening.
There’s an aspect of this story I wasn’t
getting right and then I knew what I
wasn’t getting right. I wasn’t getting the
intimacy right. “He gave me a haircut…”
and I knew at that moment what the
story was. I just wrote the whole play
in maybe a week. I knew exactly what
order the scenes would come in, I knew
it was counting down. The whole thing.
I knew all the characters, I knew how it
was structured, I knew. Everything about
it, I knew. And I was done before I left
the residency.
What was it about the idea of the haircut that ended up unlocking the rest of
the play for you?
That thing about the Baron Docteur
giving Saartjie a haircut – so that was
a story of Saartjie who had a horrible,
horrible experience, but also part of the
experience is with somebody who gave
her a haircut. It wasn’t like he forced
her down and cut her hair and she was
struggling. She sat there while he cut
her hair, which indicates a degree of
trust that was there, which was violated – very important – but there was a
semblance of trust that was there at one
point in her relationship with the doctor.
And this, people should know, is based
on fact but it’s all fabricated. It’s based
on fact – well, these days that word is
so freaky – based on pieces of research
that I did in the library about her and
other “freaks.” So it’s an amalgam, it’s
her story and I sort of brought in other
stories of other people who were objects
of interest, ridicule. It’s not the history
channel. It’s an examination of the way
things had happened to her which were
unfortunate, the way she tried to have
a better life and it didn’t work out, and
the way we love now, in which there are
so many similarities. The way we try to
improve our lives and end up failing.
There’s a complicated relationship
between exploitation and autonomy in
Venus – the “freaks” in the sideshows
were able to make a living and gain
some financial independence, but that
cost them the ability to have control
over their own image.
Exactly. For Saartjie it’s compounded,
because we think of the people with
the parasitic twins, with the more than
two legs, you know? The Tom Thumb, or
the super tall guy, or the bearded lady.
You know, those folks, who in our country you would do a double take. “Look,
there’s a guy with a parasitic twin!” But
the “freak shows” in Saartjie’s time had
black people in them. In their home
towns, in their country of origin, they
would not be a freak. The parasitic twin
probably would be, but the black guy or
the black woman wouldn’t be. They were
taken out of their home context and
brought into a world where they were
“freaks,” but Saartjie wasn’t a freak in her
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country. So that’s different, that’s kind
of an added thing to be invited/taken
or taken/invited to go to another land
where you’re going to be the only one.
So there’s that, there’s all that. You know,
you see the freak show. Sure, you see
the tattooed lady and the guy with the
parasitic twin, and then you see the Native American people. “Here’s some real
Sioux Indians! And they’re standing there
in their Sioux Indian outfits! Wow, look
at ‘em! There they are, maybe they’ll do
a dance?” And there’s a lot of that going
on too, so there’s a huge element of racism that’s going on for her that wasn’t a
part of all the freaks stories.
Five years ago I went to Angkor Wat and
I was walking around the ruins. It’s, of
course, amazing. I’m like, “Oh my god!
My mouth is hanging open because I’m
Adam Forepaugh’s Wild West exhibition, 1889.
amazed!” I was by myself with a tour
guide, I was just doing a solo kind of
thing. And I turn and there are some tourists... there was a tour group from China
also walking nearby. But, so I’m looking,
looking, looking, and I look and I see
the tour group and they’re very close –
maybe ten feet away – and two or three
of them go, “Ahhhh!” They point and
they scream... and they’re pointing at me.
First I thought, “Oh they’re pointing at
the amazing architecture.” So I thought,
“Oh maybe it’s something amazing that I
didn’t look at, that I didn’t notice?” Then
I realize that they’re pointing at me and
they’re screaming, and they run and they
just stand and they stare at me. They
had never seen a live black person and
this was what was happening. Well they
saw plenty of black folks on the internet
but never one that was live, and they
ran towards me. And this is maybe like
20 people, running towards me and I’m
thinking “Wow!” and then just stand still.
I’ve lived in a lot of different places so it’s
happened to me enough. But as a child in
Germany, or in Vermont, so it’s happened
before... but not as an adult. At Angkor
Wat! But I was the most exciting thing
they’d seen all day, said the tour guide.
And they wanted to pose with me, there
was a lot of photography going on, and
videos. It was really, really intense. So
you think about the autopsy reports of
Saartjie and of other folks that they said
were “abnormal.” That’s because these
scientists didn’t go to the southern part
of Africa where she was from and see,
“Wow, look, three out of five women have
bodies like that.” But that’s sort of the
racism inherent in how she was made a
freak. That’s what I’m saying.
Handbill from the late 1800s advertising “human wonders” who experience
hypertrichosis, or excessive body hair.
“The Mahdi,” Barnum & Bailey, 1898.
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What are you interested in exploring in
this new production?
I feel like everywhere I look people are
talking about body positive models on
the runway and what’s gender normative... all these questions we’re having
because, really, what’s gender normative? 1996 when we did Venus at The
Public Theater, we weren’t really having those conversations as a culture
as much back then as we are now. To
break it down, it’s a question of “what
am I supposed to look like? Do I look
like what people want or expect me
to look like?” And if I don’t look like
that then I’m outside the boundaries of
normal and consequently outside the
boundaries of love. For example, okay,
number one The Bachelorette. Oh, The
Bachelorette now is having this beautiful woman, I don’t know her name –
fabulous, gorgeous woman – she’s the
first black Bachelorette. In like 90 million years, they finally decided that it
might be nice to watch a woman of color select a lover, or I don’t know I never
watch the show, select a boyfriend or a
spouse – whatever the show is. So the
question, “What am I supposed to look
like?” if you’re outside those boundaries then your possibilities of being
loved are diminished. Black women are
not lovable, that’s what The Bachelor’s
been saying for years, or black men
are not lovable. They’re not included,
they’re excluded, people of color. Or on
online dating they say, “If you’re a black
woman, forget it. You’re not going to
find a guy.” It can be impossible to find
a guy online when you’re a black woman because you are outside the boundaries of what a lover is “supposed” to
look like. So it’s looks in relation to love,
and that’s the conversation that we’re
really having now in the culture. In 1996,
not so much. Not that I wrote the play
so we talk about things, I wrote the
play because I love Saartjie and I think
she’s beautiful and I wanted to give her
a show. This is someone who I want to
shine some love on. She wanted to be
a star of a show and now she’s a star of
a show. It’s all about her and her trials and tribulations, and how she tries
to make a better life for herself and
doesn’t succeed. But we all do that. We
all reach, you know. We’re all reaching
for something and falling short.
Irene Woodward, a tattooed performer, 1880s.
Circus poster of Miss Creola and Miss Alwanda, tattooed performers.
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FURTHER DISCUSSIONS
• Did you have any prior knowledge about ‘The Hottentot Venus’ or Saartjie Baartman? Did you come
to this show with any expectations? If so, were these expectations met or challenged?
• How are music, costumes, scenic design, and lighting used in this production? What design elements
stand out to you?
• Are there any characters that surprised you? Is there someone you would like to know more about?
• How does the chorus of this production interact with the main characters? What do they add to the
production as a whole?
• Venus contains a play within the play. How does this device add to, or comment on, the play
about Venus?
• The plot of Venus is not linear; the events of Venus’s life appear out of order and historical information is inserted between scenes. Why do you think the playwright chose this structure? How does this
impact your experience of watching this story unfold?
• How does the ‘love story’ between Venus and The Baron Docteur change your perception of both of
these characters?
• Saartjie Baartman was exhibited as The Hottentot Venus in sideshows for most of her life due to her
skin color and her silhouette, which were both seen as rarities in Europe at the time. Why do you
think human beings are so fascinated with those who differ from society’s standard of “normal?”
• How do race and gender uniquely shape Venus’s story?
• Why do you think it’s important for Venus/Saartjie Baartman’s story to be told?
13
CAST & CREATIVE TEAM
SIGNATURE THEATRE
Artistic Director Paige Evans
Executive Director Erika Mallin Founder James Houghton VENUS
By Suzan-Lori Parks
Directed by Lear deBessonet
Cast
Hannah Cabell
John Ellison Conlee
Randy Danson
Adam Green
Birgit Huppuch
Zainab Jah
Kevin Mambo
Patrena Murray
Reynaldo Piniella
Julian Rozzell
Tony Torn
Scenic Design Matt Saunders
Costume Design Emilio Sosa
Lighting Design Justin Townsend
Sound Design & Original Music Brandon Wolcott
Wig, Hair, & Makeup Design J. Jared Janas
Choreographer Danny Mefford
Fight Director Thomas Schall
Production Stage Manager Evangeline Rose Whitlock
Casting Telsey + Company, William Cantler, CSA
Press Boneau/ Bryan-Brown
Associate Artistic Director Beth Whitaker
General Manager Gilbert Medina
Director of Development Glenn Alan Stiskal
Director of Marketing & Audience Services David Hatkoff
Director of Finance Jeffrey Bledsoe
Director of Production & Facilities Paul Ziemer 14
PLAYWRIGHT BIO
SUZAN-LORI PARKS
PLAYWRIGHT
For the Public Theater: Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts
1, 2 & 3) (Pulitzer Prize finalist), Watch Me Work, The Book of Grace,
365 Days/365 Plays (in conjunction with over 700 theatres worldwide), Topdog/Underdog, Fucking A, In the Blood (Pulitzer Prize
finalist), Venus, The America Play. On Broadway: The Gershwins’
Porgy and Bess, Topdog/Underdog. Other Off-Broadway includes
Unchain My Heart, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole
Entire World, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom. Film
includes Girl 6 (directed by Spike Lee), Their Eyes Were Watching
God (produced by Oprah Winfrey), Anemone Me (produced by
Christine Vachon & Todd Haynes). Suzan-Lori is the first AfricanAmerican woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Drama and is a
MacArthur “Genius” Award recipient. Other awards include Tony
Award for Best Revival of a Musical (Porgy and Bess); The Gish Prize
for Excellence in the Arts; Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama;
Horton Foote Prize; Obie Award for Playwriting: Best New American Play. Suzan-Lori teaches at New York University and serves at
The Public Theater as its Master Writer Chair. She also currently
performs Watch Me Work, a free, live-streamed, weekly writing
workshop, open to artists of all disciplines. Her first novel, Getting
Mother’s Body (Random House, 2003), includes songs and is set
in the West Texas of her youth. She is currently developing a series
for Amazon and a musical adaptation of the film The Harder They
Come. For more info visit SuzanLoriParks.com.
Photo of Suzan-Lori Parks
by Gregory Costanzo.
Photo of Suzan-Lori Parks
by Gregory Costanzo.
15
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CAST BIOS
HANNAH CABELL
(The Chorus/Witness #2) Broadway:
The Father (MTC), A Man for All Seasons
(Roundabout). Off-Broadway: Men on
Boats (Clubbed Thumb/Playwrights Horizons), Grounded (Page73; Drama Desk
nom.), 3C (Rattlestick), Compulsion (Public Theater), Pumpgirl (MTC), and others.
Regional: World premieres of The Moors,
Marie Antoinette, Compulsion, In the Next
Room, or the vibrator play, and others.
TV: “The Path,” “Mr. Robot,” “Happyish,”
“The Leftovers,” “Law & Order.”
JOHN ELLISON CONLEE
(The Man, later the Baron Docteur)
Recent theatre credits include Tumacho, Watson(s) in The (curious case of
the) Watson Intelligence at Playwrights
Horizons (2014 Obie Award), and Murder Ballad (MTC/Union Square). Recent
film and TV work includes LBJ (Dir. Rob
Reiner), Great News, One More Time, Hal
Hartley’s film Ned Rifle, “Billions,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Parks and
Recreation,” and “Boardwalk Empire”
(SAG Award nomination). Broadway: The
Full Monty (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics nominations), The Constant Wife, and
1776. Off-Broadway includes Pig Farm
(Roundabout), Ethan Lipton’s Luther
(Clubbed Thumb), The Butter and Egg
Man, Once in A Lifetime, and The Bald
Soprano (Atlantic), and Encores versions of Anyone Can Whistle and A Tree
Grows in Brooklyn. Other work includes
(TV) “Nurse Jackie,” “Brotherhood,”
“NCIS:LA,” “Common Law,” “Medium,”
and films, Serendipity, The Rebound, and
Kinsey. He received his MFA from NYU.
RANDY DANSON
(The Man’s Brother, later the MotherShowman, later the Grade-School
Chum) was last seen in New York as
the title role demon in Ethan Lipton’s
western musical, Tumacho at Clubbed
Thumb’s Summer Works. Prior to that,
she appeared in Sam Hunter’s Lewiston at The Long Wharf Theatre. She
has played Madame Morrible in Wicked
on tour and on Broadway. Randy was
given the Helen Hayes Award for her
portrayal of the title role in The Good
Person Of Szechuan at the Arena Stage
and the Barrymore Award for Viv in Wit
at The Philadelphia Theatre Company.
She received an OBIE for Sustained
Excellence in 1992.
ADAM GREEN
(The Chorus/Young Man) NEW YORK: Red
Bull; Pearl Theatre; Second Stage Uptown;
Playwrights Realm; 59e59; Lion Theatre;
Theater at St. Clement’s; New York City
Opera; 59e59; Theatre for the New City;
Walkerspace. REGIONAL: Affiliated Artist with Shakespeare Theatre of DC (two
Helen Hayes nominations for Midsummer
Night’s Dream and the world premiere of
The Liar; Emery Battis Award); McCarter
Theatre: Numerous, including Figaro in
The Figaro Plays; Hartford Stage (CT Critics Circle nom.); Barrington Stage; Alley
Theatre; La Jolla Playhouse; Actors Theatre
of Louisville; Arena Stage; Geva Theatre;
Alliance Theatre; TV: “The Good Wife,”
“Madam Secretary.” TRAINING: NYU, MFA;
Harvard, BA in English.
BIRGIT HUPPUCH
(Chorus) Credits include: The Moors
(Playwrights Realm & Yale Rep, CT Critics Circle Award), Poison (Origin), Men
on Boats (Playwrights Horizons/Clubbed
Thumb), I Will Be Gone (Humana Festival), Judy (Page73), Angel Reapers (The
Joyce), The Debate Society’s Blood Play
(Bushwick Starr, Public, Williamstown), Pig
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CAST BIOS
Cast of Venus. Photo by Gregory Costanzo.
Iron’s Twelfth Night (Abrons), A Map of
Virtue (13P), Neighbors (Public), Telephone (Foundry, OBIE for Performance),
Not What Happened (BAM Next Wave),
Love in the Wars (Bard Summerscape),
The Wolfe Twins (Studio Theatre, D.C.).
Film: The Strange Ones, The Sisterhood
of Night. TV: HBO’s “High Maintenance.”
Charles Bowden Award. Clubbed Thumb
Affiliated Artist.
ZAINAB JAH
(Miss Saartjie Baartman, A.K.A. The Girl,
and later the Venus Hottentot) Recent
credits include: Maima, Eclipsed, Broadway; title role of Hamlet, (The Wilma
Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Romeo N Juliet (Classical Theatre of
Harlem), The Loneliness of the Long
Distance Runner, (Atlantic Theater,
NYC), Prudence in The Convert, Josephine, Ruined, A Doll’s House (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Helen of Troy,
Trojan Women, (Classical Theatre of
Harlem), In Darfur, (The Public Theatre/NYSF), Peter Sellars’ Children Of
Herakles, (European Tour). Film / TV
credits: “Homeland,” “Elementary,” New
York, I Love You (Short), “Law & Order
SVU,” Outliving Emily (with Andre
Braugher and Philicia Rashad), Along
Came Love, (with Vanessa Williams).
Awards: Philadelphia Critcs’ Circle Best
Actress Award (Hamlet), Los Angeles
Stage Alliance Ovation Award Best Featured Actress (The Convert); San Francisco Bay Area Critics’ Circle – Outsanding Performance Female Featured Role
(Ruined); and Best Featured Actress,
Philadelphia Critics’ Circle Featured Actress Award (The Convert).
KEVIN MAMBO
(The Negro Resurrectionist) Broadway:
Fela!, Color Purple, Nat. Tour: The Book of
Mormon (Helen Hayes Nom.), Off B’Way:
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CAST BIOS
RUINED (MTC/Goodman Theatre),
Hoodoo Love (Cherry Lane), The Convert (McCarter/Goodman Theatre/CTG)
Mother Courage (CSC), Painted Rocks
at Revolver Creek (Signature), Fortress
of Solitude (Public; Lucille Lortel Nom)
Theatre for One, Regional: Seven Guitars
(Two Rivers), Pericles (Two Rivers), Syncing Ink (Alley Theatre), Brothers From the
Bottom (NOCCA; Audelco), FILM / TV:
Cadillac Records, Rebel in the Rye, Nina,
Trooper, “High Maintenance,” “Happyish,”
“Elementary,” “Mistresses,” “Soul Food”
(recurring), “Law & Order: SVU,” “Deadline,” “Criminal Intent,” “Spin City,” “One
Life to Live” (principal), “Guiding Light” (2
Daytime Emmys), follow: @iammambo.
PATRENA MURRAY
(The Chorus/The Uncle) is delighted to
be back at Signature Theatre. She was
most recently seen as Ham in Suzan-Lori
Parks’ The Death of the Last Black Man in
the Whole Entire World AKA the Negro
Book of the Dead. Favorite roles: Oddsee
Dog in Father Comes Home from the
Wars (parts 1, 2, & 3), Ermina in Crumbs
from the Table of Joy, and Pantalone in
The Green Bird. Patrena is a company
member of the Irondale Ensemble Proj-
ect. She has a BFA from SUNY Purchase. Enjoy the show.
REYNALDO PINIELLA
(The Chorus/Witness #4) was last seen
at Signature Theatre in The Death of
the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire
World AKA the Negro Book of the
Dead. Other theatre credits include The
Skin of Our Teeth (TFANA), Romeo &
Juliet (Actors Theatre of Louisville), I &
You (Repertory Theatre of St. Louis).
TV credits include “Sneaky Pete,”
“Greenleaf,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “NYC
22,” “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,”
“Us & Them,” “Louie,” “Flesh & Bone,”
“The Carrie Diaries,” and “The Plug”
(pilot). Film credits include Broken City,
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
and One Percent More Humid (Tribeca
Film Festival 2017). Follow him on
Twitter and Instagram @ReynaldoRey.
www.reynaldopiniella.com
JULIAN ROZZELL
(The Chorus/The Father) New York
acting credits include Stew and Heidi
Rodewald’s The Total Bent and SuzanLori Parks’ Father Comes Home from
the Wars, directed by Jo Bonney at The
Public Theater. Julian was last seen in The
Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole
Entire World AKA the Negro Book of the
Dead at Signature Theatre as Old Man
River Jordan. Regional theater: The Piano
Lesson at The Arden Theater, and No Exit
with Imago Theater Company. Television:
recurring role on “Boardwalk Empire,” as
Harlan opposite Steve Buscemi, “Law and
Order,” “The Breaks,” “Person of Interest,”
“Bull,” and “Luke Cage.”
TONY TORN
(The Chorus/The Mother) Signature
Theatre debut. Recent Stage: The King
in Ben Beckley’s Latter Days (Dir. Jess
Chayes), with Dutch Kills Theater at
Ars Nova; Ubu in Ubu Sings Ubu (Also
Co-Dir with Dan Safer) at Abrons Arts
Center, American Repertory Theater, etc;
Ensemble in Rimbaud in New York (Dir.
Steven Cosson) at BAM; Ensemble in
Private Moment (Dir. David Levine) with
Creative Time; Stefano in Tempest (Dir.
Karin Coonrod) at La Mama; Porfiery in
Platonov, or The Disinherited (Dir. Jay
Scheib) at The Kitchen. Tony manages
Torn Page, an event space and classroom
in Chelsea dedicated to his parents, the
actors Rip Torn and Geraldine Page.
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CREATIVE TEAM BIOS
LEAR DEBESSONET
(Director) is currently Resident Director
at The Public Theater and Artistic Director of Public Works, for which she has
directed large-scale musical adaptations
of The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale, and The
Odyssey. Also for The Public, she directed
Good Person of Szechwan, produced by
Foundry Theatre originally at La MaMa
(Obie Award for Direction, Lortel Award
for Best Revival, Drama Desk Nomination,
Lilly Award), and Romeo and Juliet. She
directed Big River for Encores! and Pump
Boys and Dinettes for Encores! Off-Center,
Miss You Like Hell at La Jolla Playhouse,
and will direct Midsummer Night’s Dream
for Shakespeare in the Park this summer.
MATT SAUNDERS
(Scenic Design) Recent Off Broadway
work: Futurity (Soho Rep and Ars Nova),
Good Person of Szechwan (Foundry and
the Public), The Tempest (Public Theater/
Delacorte). Over 100 regional credits including: Lincoln Center, Mark Taper Forum,
Huntington Theatre Compay, Berkeley
Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis,
Wilma Theater, Arden Theater Copany,
Syracuse Stage, Pig Iron Theatre Company, and Philadelphia Theater Company.
Training MFA from Yale School of Drama.
Saunders is a Pew Fellow in the Arts and
a Hodder Fellow at Princeton Univeristy.
Associate Artistic Director of New Paradise Laboratories. Assistant Professor of
Design at Swarthmore College.
EMILIO SOSA
(Costume Design) Radio City New York
Spectacular 2015-2016; Broadway: On
Your Feet: The Emilio and Gloria Estefan
Story; Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,
Motown: The Musical (West End, National Tour); Porgy and Bess (TONY nom,
NAACP Theatre Award), Ma Rainey’s Black
Bottom (London), Topdog/Underdog. Off
Broadway: By the Way, Meet Vera Stark
(Lucille Lortell Award, NAACP Theater
Award), Sex with Strangers, Crowns, Ma
Rainy’s Black Bottom, Sunset Baby, Detroit
67, The Misanthrope. Regional: Twist (LA
Ovation Award), Immediate Family, Marley: The Musical, American Night, Ruined,
Cutting Up, Señor Discretion Himself, (Helen Hayes nom), Witness Uganda, Fences,
Turandot: The Rumble for the Ring, Pippin,
Ain’t Misbehavin’, Sense & Sensibility: The
Musical. Project Runway Finalist, Board of
Trustees American Theater Wing.
JUSTIN TOWNSEND
(Lighting Design) Also with deBessonet:
Bone Portraits, Odyssey, Winter’s Tale, Don
Quixote. Broadway: Little Foxes, Present
Laughter, American Psycho, The Humans,
Fool for Love, Casa Valentina, Vanya and
Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Other
Place, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.
Off-B’way: Joan of Arc: Into the Fire, Here
Lies Love (Public); Vietgone (MTC); Ten
out of Twelve (Soho Rep); Pretty Filthy
(Civilians); Mr. Burns, a Post Electric Play
(Playwrights); Henry Hewes, Lucille Lortel,
Drama Desk, Sustained Excellence Lighting Design Obie 2014. Assistant Professor
Brooklyn College.
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CREATIVE TEAM BIOS
BRANDON WOLCOTT
(Sound Design & Original Music) Brandon Wolcott is an NYC-based sound
designer and composer. Recent/Notable:
The Fever (600 Highwaymen), Coriolanus
(Red Bull), Signature Plays, Everybody
(Signature), Kill Floor (Lincoln Center),
Habeas Corpus (Park Avenue Armory),
The Record (600 Highwaymen), The
Nether (MCC), Kansas City Choir Boy
(Prototype), Good Person of Szechwan,
Titus Andronicus (The Public Theater),
The Profane (Playwrights Horizons). Collaborations with Marina Abramovic, Laurie Anderson, Faye Driscoll, Nicolas Jaar,
Elizabeth Streb, Woodshed Collective,
Red Bull, New Georges, Clubbed Thumb
and many more...
J. JARED JANAS
(Wig, Hair, & Makeup Design) Broadway
designs include Bandstand, Indecent,
Sunset Boulevard, The Visit, The Real
Thing, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and
Grill, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,
Peter and the Starcatcher, All About Me,
and Next to Normal. Recent Off-Broad-
way designs include Pacific Overtures,
The Liar, Dead Poets Society, Yours Unfaithfully, and This Day Forward. TV/film
includes “30 Rock,” “Gotham,” “Mozart in
the Jungle,” “Master of None,” Lola Versus, Angelica, and Six by Sondheim.
DANNY MEFFORD
(Choreographer) Choreography credits
include current Broadway hit Dear Evan
Hansen after productions at Second Stage
Theatre and Arena Stage, Tony Awardwinning Best Musical Fun Home (Lortel
nomination), currently-running national
tour of The Sound of Music for director
Jack O’Brien, Much Ado About Nothing
at the Delacorte Theatre, The Bridges
of Madison County on Broadway, Love’s
Labour’s Lost (Drama Desk nomination),
Poster Boy at the Williamstown Theater
Festival, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
at the Public Theater and on Broadway
(Astaire and Lortel nominations). Danny
graduated summa cum laude from the
University of Evansville and holds an
M.F.A. from Brown.
Zainab Jah and costume designer Emilio Sosa. Photo by Gregory Costanzo.
Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, Zainab Jah, and director Lear deBessonet.
Photo by Gregory Costanzo.
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CREATIVE TEAM BIOS
THOMAS SCHALL
(Fight Director) Over 70 Broadway
shows... Six Degrees of Separation,
Groundhog Day, Jitney, The Present, The
Front Page, The Crucible, Blackbird, The
Color Purple, The King And I, War Horse,
Of Mice and Men, Romeo And Juliet,
Death of A Salesman, Venus In Fur, A
View From The Bridge. He has worked
extensively at Lincoln Center Theater
(Disgraced, Blood and Gifts), the Public
Theater (Hamlet, King Lear, Mother Courage), MTC (Ruined, Murder Ballad), NY
Theatre Workshop (Red Speedo, Othello).
Met Opera (Nozze de Figaro, Il Trovatore).
EVANGELINE ROSE WHITLOCK
(Production Stage Manager) Off-Broadway: Twelfth Night; The Odyssey; The
Winter’s Tale; The Tempest (Public Works
at The Public Theater), Grounded; Father
Comes Home From the Wars Parts 1, 2 & 3;
Antony and Cleopatra (The Public Theater); Nice Fish (Co-Production A.R.T/St.
Ann’s Warehouse); Lost Girls (MCC). Tours:
Flashdance. Regional: The Tempest (Dallas
Theater Center), Miss You Like Hell (La
Jolla Playhouse), Father Comes Home…
(A.R.T. & Center Theatre Group); The
Scottsboro Boys (CTG/Old Globe/A.C.T.);
Allegiance; A Room With a View; Odyssey (Old Globe). M.F.A., UC San Diego.
Adjunct Faculty: Adelphi University.
JASON PACELLA
(Assistant Stage Manager) Broadway:
Miss Saigon. Off-Broadway: Love, Love,
Love, at Roundabout Theatre Company,
The Odyssey, The Tempest, Buñuel reading, at The Public Theater; Scenes from a
Marriage at New York Theatre Workshop.
Regional Theatre: Steel Hammer, Café
Variations with SITI Company; The Glory of
the World at Brooklyn Academy of Music;
20th Century Blues, The Wedding Gift at
Contemporary American Theater Festival;
Cardboard Piano, Dot at Actors Theatre of
Louisville. Film/TV: The 70th Annual Tony
Awards, “Match Game,” on ABC, NBC’s
“Peter Pan Live!” “The Wiz Live!” B.F.A. in
Stage and Production Management from
Emerson College.
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SIGNATURE SPOTLIGHT SERIES
Learn about a work’s inspiration, ask questions of its creators, and deepen your understanding of the
artistic process and the role of a theatre artist at the Center and beyond. Our free supplemental programming includes:
BACKSTAGE PASS
TALKBACK SERIES
Get an inside look at the mechanics behind the magic
in this pre-show discussion with one of the show’s designers. Learn how design shapes the audience experience and transforms a production.
Learn about the process of putting on a production,
what it’s like to play the characters, what goes on
behind the scenes, and much more in this postshow Q&A session with the cast and creative team.
Thursday, May 25th, 6PM
PARTICIPANTS:
Costume Designer Emilio Sosa
(Post-show on the Diamond Stage)
Tuesday, May 2nd
Thursday, May 18th
Tuesday, May 23rd
Tuesday, May 30th
PAGE TO STAGE
Hear the full story on how artists transform an idea
into a play through a moderated discussion with
members of the Artistic Team.
Tuesday, May 2th, 6pm
PARTICIPANTS:
Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks
The Signature Spotlight Series is sponsored by
American Express.
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ABOUT SIGNATURE
Signature Theatre celebrates playwrights and gives them an
artistic home. By producing multiple plays by each resident
writer, Signature offers an in-depth look at their bodies of
work. Founded in 1991 by James Houghton, Signature makes
an extended commitment to a playwright’s body of work, and
during this journey the writer is engaged in every aspect of the
creative process. By championing in-depth explorations of a
playwright’s body of work, Signature delivers an intimate and
immersive journey into a playwright’s singular vision. Signature
serves its mission through its permanent home at The Pershing
Square Signature Center, a three-theatre facility on West 42nd
Street designed by Frank Gehry Architects to host Signature’s
three distinct playwrights’ residencies and foster a cultural community. At the Center, opened in January 2012, Signature continues its founding Playwright-in-Residence model as Residency
One, a first-of-its-kind, intensive exploration of a single writer’s
body of work. Residency Five, the only program of its kind, was
launched at the Center to support multiple playwrights as they
build bodies of work by guaranteeing each writer three productions over a five-year period. The Legacy Program, launched
during Signature’s 10th Anniversary, invites writers from both
residencies back for productions of premiere or earlier plays.
The Pershing Square Signature Center is a major contribution
to New York City’s cultural landscape and provides a venue for
cultural organizations that supports and encourages collaboration among artists throughout the space. In addition to its
three intimate theatres, the Center features a studio theatre, a
rehearsal studio and a public café, bar and bookstore. Through
the Signature Ticket Initiative: A Generation of Access, Signature has also made an unprecedented commitment to making
its productions accessible by underwriting the cost of the initial
run tickets, currently priced at $30, through 2031. Signature
has presented entire seasons of the work of Edward Albee, Lee
Blessing, Horton Foote, María Irene Fornés, Athol Fugard, John
Guare, A. R. Gurney, David Henry Hwang, Bill Irwin, Adrienne
Kennedy, Tony Kushner, Romulus Linney, Charles Mee, Arthur
Miller, Sam Shepard, Paula Vogel, Naomi Wallace, August Wilson, Lanford Wilson and a season celebrating the historic Negro
Ensemble Company. Signature’s current Residency One playwright is Suzan-Lori Parks; current Residency Five playwrights
are Annie Baker, Martha Clarke, Will Eno, Katori Hall, Quiara
Alegría Hudes, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Kenneth Lonergan and
Regina Taylor. Signature was the recipient of the 2014 Regional
Theatre Tony Award®, and its productions and resident writers have been recognized with the Pulitzer Prize, Lucille Lortel
Awards, Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards, AUDELCO Awards,
among many other distinctions. For more information, please
visit signaturetheatre.org.
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