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FULL CREDITSStarring Akin Babatundé
with David Weiss on guitar Written by Alan Govenar and Akin Babatundé Directed by Katherine Owens Set Design by James Morgan Lighting Design by Steve Woods Sound Design by Jason Johnson-Spinos Costume Design by Gelacio Eric Gibson Movement Specialist: Danielle Georgiou Associate Scenic Design: Michael Harbeck Assistant Set Design: Yamila Chiappe Production Manager: Kevin Maloof Production Stage Manager: Chris Steckel Assistant Stage Manager: P. Tyler Britt |
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
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Akin Babatundé
Actor/Playwright
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Akin Babatundé is an accomplished actor, director, and writer whose theatrical career spans Broadway, regional theatre, film, and television. He holds a Master of Arts degree in Arts and Humanities from the University of Texas at Dallas. He has been a resident company member of prestigious theatrical institutions throughout the country: Trinity Rep (Providence, R.I.), Alley Theater (Houston, TX), La Mama Theater (NY City), and the Dallas Theater Center. He is founder and artistic director of Vivid Theater Ensemble of Dallas and founder of Ebony Emeralds Classic Theater Company. Babatundé was the first African-American to direct for the Dallas Shakespeare Festival in the celebrated diverse production of Taming of the Shrew in 1993. As a writer, his work has been commissioned by Florida Stage, La Mama Theater, the Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, Brown University, the Black Academy of Arts and the and Core Ensemble. His work Shakespeare – Midnight Echoes tours in Texas paying homage to black performing artists who performed Shakespeare from slavery to the present. He has toured extensively with Core Ensemble in Of Ebony Embers – Vignettes of the Harlem Renaissance. His one-man show, Before the Second Set – A Visit with Satchmo, which he co-wrote with Emmy award-winner Obba Babatunde, has received critical acclaim at theaters across the country. Babatundé co-wrote and starred in Blind Lemon Blues. Television appearances include “Law and Order” and “Wishbone,” the PBS literary show for children. Babatundé is a renowned arts educator, having undertaken five long-term artist residencies in underserved communities in Florida, creating new music theatre works alongside at-risk teens and community members. Babatundé is the recipient of the 2016 Theodore Holger distinguished artist in residence for the visual and performing arts at Lehigh University, Dallas Critics Forum Award, D-FW Black Arts Irma Hall Award for Theater Excellence, and the Fort Worth Live Theater League Diversity Award.
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Alan Govenar
Playwright
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Alan Govenar is a writer, folklorist, photographer, and filmmaker. He is president of Documentary Arts, a non-profit organization he founded in 1985 to present new perspectives on historical issues and diverse cultures. Govenar has a B.A. with distinction in American Folklore from Ohio State University, an M.A. in Folklore and Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Ph.D. in Arts and Humanities from the University of Texas at Dallas. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of thirty books, including Texas Blues: The Rise of a Contemporary Sound, Stompin’ at the Savoy: The Story of Norma Miller, Extraordinary Ordinary People, Everyday Music, Untold Glory, Stoney Knows How: Life as a Sideshow Tattoo Artist, Deep Ellum: The Other Side of Dallas, Portraits of Community, The Early Years of Rhythm and Blues: The Photography of Benny Joseph, and The Blues Come to Texas: Paul Oliver and Mack McCormick’s Unfinished Book. His book Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper’s Daughter won First Place in the New York Book Festival (Children’s Non-Fiction), a Boston Globe-Hornbook Honor; and an Orbis Pictus Honor from the National Council of Teachers of English.
Govenar’s film, Stoney Knows How, based on his book by the same title about Old School tattoo artist Leonard St. Clair, was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and was selected as an Outstanding Film of the Year by the London Film Festival. Govenar has also produced and directed numerous films in association with NOVA, La Sept/ARTE, and PBS for broadcast and educational distribution. His documentaries The Beat Hotel, Master Qi and the Monkey King, You Don’t Need Feet to Dance, and Extraordinary Ordinary People are distributed by First Run Features. Govenar is also a playwright, whose musicals include Blind Lemon Blues and Lonesome Blues (with Akin Babatunde) and Texas in Paris. His musicals have been performed at the York Theatre (New York), Forum Meyrin (Geneva), Maison des Cultures du Monde (Paris), Zuiderpershuis (Antwerp), Leidse Schouwburg (Leiden), Regentes (Den Haag), and Oude Luxor (Rotterdam). His artist books and photographs are in collections in the United States and abroad, including The Museum of Modern Art (New York), Victoria and Albert Museum (London, Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), National Portrait Gallery (Washington, DC), and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. |
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Katherine Owens
Director
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Katherine Owens is Artistic Director and a founding member of the Undermain Theatre in Dallas’ Deep Ellum. In New York she has directed the premieres of Neil Young's Greendale and John O'Keffe's Glamour at the Ohio Theatre, Jeffrey M. Jones' A Man's Best Friend at WalkerSpace, and Lenora Champagne's Coaticook at the SoHo Think Tank's Ice Factory Festival. She has designed the videos for Erik Ehn's Gold Into Mud at HERE’s American Living Room Festival and Swedish Tales of Woe at the Ohio. At Undermain she has directed the world premieres of several plays including Len Jenkin's Jonah, which she and Jenkin developed at the Sundance Institute, and his Abraham Zobell's Home Movie, Time in Kafka, and Port Twilight, Matthew Paul Olmos’ so go the ghosts of méxico, part one and two, David Rabe's The Black Monk, Lynne Alvarez's The Snow Queen, Mac Wellman's Two September, A Murder of Crows, and The Hyacinth Macaw, Sylvan Oswald's Profanity as well as Gordon Dahlquist's Tomorrow Come Today, which went on to win the James Tait Black Award for Drama in 2015. Other recent Undermain credits include Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo, and Strindberg’s Easter. In Europe she has appeared in Goran Stephanovski’s Sarajevo for the Ohrid Theater Festival in 1995, and Judges 19: Black Lung Exhaling, which she directed as part of the international Belgrade Summer Festival in 2000. Katherine is a recipient of the AAUW Texas Woman of Distinction Award, the 2013 Dallas Historical Society Award for Excellence in the Creative Arts, and was nominated for the 2013 "Texan of the Year" by the Dallas Morning News. She is a fellow of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, a native of Odessa, Texas and graduate of the University of Texas in Austin. She is currently in development for Matthew Paul Olmos’ so go the ghosts of méxico, part three and Len Jenkin’s How is it That We Live or Shakey Jake and Alice with her longtime collaborators: designer John Arnone and actor and musician Bruce DuBose.
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David Weiss
Guitarist
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David Weiss is a guitarist, songwriter and producer based in New York City. Among other credits, David’s music and songs have appeared on award-winning albums (Straight From The Heart--Rolling Stone Magazine’s Top Albums of 2003), HBO’s The Night Of, major motion pictures (Leatherface), and national ad campaigns (Shimano). David’s guitar has been a presence in many pivotal music scenes, from Canter’s Kibitz Room in Los Angeles in the early 90s to a year-long residency at Levon Helm’s legendary Midnight Ramble sessions, where he performed as a member of the Alexis P. Suter Band. In 2014, David was tapped to be “the other guitarist” in Steve Conte NYC, the band led by brilliant New York guitarist, singer and songwriter Steve Conte (Paul Simon, New York Dolls, Eric Burdon, Mink De Ville). David currently performs locally with critical favorites, Girls on Grass, as well as 2/3 Goat, a mainstay of the NYC roots-rock scene. In 2009, Weiss created alter-ego Travis Whitelaw, an outrageous redneck country singer from Texarkana, TX. Whitelaw has produced two albums of raunchy country music to date, Sexarkana! (2009) and Beer & Booty (2014). Sexarkana!, lauded by Guitar Player Magazine as “a cross between Steve Earle and the Porkys movies,” garnered widespread airplay on Sirius-XM satellite radio. Following several years in northern California where he cut his teeth playing in a variety of bands, Weiss moved to Venice, California. From the mid-nineties to early aughts, Weiss led his blues-funk quartet, SlackJaw Blues, on myriad cross-country treks, in which the band played most of the lower 48 states (plus Alaska) in venues ranging from dive bars in Fargo to the esteemed Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, Oregon where SlackJaw Blues opened for Los Lobos and The Allman Brothers. The group also shared the bill with Charlie Musselwhite and Robert Cray at the band’s final performance during the National Orange Show in San Bernadino, California. SlackJaw Blues released two full-length independent recordings, Knuckle Down and Bourbon DeLuxe. Having gigged extensively with California guitar legend Carlos Guitarlos (Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs, Tom Waits, The Breeders), Weiss performed on Guitarlos’ solo debut, Straight from the Heart which won many accolades, including Rolling Stone magazine’s ‘Top Albums of 2003’. Weiss plays guitar on nearly all of the album’s 17 tracks alongside X’s John Doe, Cesar Rojas of Los Lobos, Dave Alvin, and Mike Watt. Weiss also penned the album’s haunting track, “When The Pain Stops Killing Me.”
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Steve Woods
Lighting Designer
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International work has taken Steve Woods around the world with stops in Berlin, Moscow, London, Prague, Taipei, Budapest, Amsterdam, Madrid, and beyond. His work has been seen at many of the world’s national theaters, the Olympics, and International Festivals including the Festival de L’Imaginaire and the Festival Blues Sur Scene in Paris. New York City credits include work with Lincoln Center, Juilliard, Theatre for a New Audience (Lucille Lortel Award), Riverside, York Theatre, Ohio Theatre, Guggenheim Museum, Summer Stage, Masters of American Dance, and the Joyce Theatre. Since 1988, he has been a frequent designer for the Jose Limon Dance Company where his work has been seen in the New York, Washington DC, and Los Angeles seasons. His designs include works by Alwin Nikolais, John Cranko, Garth Fagen, Donald McKayle, Martha Graham, and Carlos Orta. Regionally his designs have also been seen at The Shakespeare Theatre (DC), The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Jacob’s Pillow, Los Angeles Music Center, American Dance Festival, Dallas Theater Center, Undermain Theatre, Kitchen Dog Theater, Utah Festival Opera, and the Spoleto Festival. His television work includes broadcasts of Evangeline, Lewis and Clark - Passages, Rigoletto, Heartbeats: The Dances of Donald McKayle, Susannah (conducted by composer Carlisle Floyd), and Lucia de Lammermoor with Roberta Peters (PBS) as well as work with the BBC, ESPN, MTV, VH-1, Showtime, and NBC.
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Jason Johnson-Spinos
Sound Designer
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Jason Johnson-Spinos is a theatre and film artist and educator based in Dallas, Texas. He has previously sound and projection designed at the York Theatre for Texas in Paris. Jason is the co-founder and marketing director of Outcry Theatre, where he does sound, projection, and lighting design. Projection/sound credits at Outcry include: dark play or stories for boys, The Four of Us, Isaac's Eye (also actor), Hearts Like Fists, My Name is Asher Lev, Bat Boy, and Spring's Awakening (sound only). He also teaches and directs for Outcry Youth Theatre, the educational branch of Outcry. As a documentary film editor, he has edited the feature films Extraordinary Ordinary People, Serving Second Chances, and You Don’t Need Feet to Dance as well as numerous short films. As a playwright, he is the co-author of adaptations of Alice in Wonderland and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, as well as a frequent contributor to the Dallas One Minute Play Festival.
www.jasonjohnsonspinos.com |