Producing Artistic Director Deborah Lawlor Co-Artistic Director Stephen Sachs Producing Director Simon Levy presents the West Coast Premiere of by Athol Fugard starring Gilbert Glenn Brown Thomas Silcott Philip Solomon Suanne Spoke set design Jeffrey McLaughlin lighting design Jennifer Edwards costume design Naila Aladdin-Sanders composer/sound design Peter Bayne prop/set dressing design Dillon Nelson production stage manager Rita Cofield technical director Scott Tuomey publicist Lucy Pollak produced by Stephen Sachs and Deborah Lawlor directed by Simon Levy World Premiere produced by Signature Theatre, New York City John Houghton, Founding Artistic Director Erika Mallin, Executive Director, on May 11, 2015 "Broadway Caliber! One of LA’s most indispensable venues’’ Los Angeles Times The Fountain Theatre is a non-profit producing organization established in 1990 by co-Artistic Directors Deborah Lawlor and Stephen Sachs dedicated to providing a nurturing, creative home for multi-ethnic theatre and dance artists. The Fountain offers a safe, supportive haven for artists of varied backgrounds to gather, interact and inspire each other toward the creation of work that will ignite and illuminate the community from which it’s drawn and give creative voice to those who may not otherwise be heard. Now in its 25th year, The Fountain has grown into one of the most highly regarded theatres in Los Angeles. The Fountain Theatre's activities include a year-round season of fully produced new and established plays (34 world premieres and 44 U.S./West Coast/Southern California/Los Angeles premieres), a full season of Flamenco and multi-ethnic dance, a New Plays developmental series, and educational outreach programs. To date, Fountain Theatre productions have won more than 225 awards for all areas of production, performance, and design. The Fountain has the distinction of being honored with more nominations and winning more Ovation awards than any other intimate theatre in Los Angeles, winning the preeminent Best Season Award twice in six years. The Fountain was honored with the 2014 BEST Award from the Sheri and Les Biller Family Foundation, and has been presented with seven Awards of Excellence from the Los Angeles City Council for enhancing the cultural life of the city. The Hollywood Arts Council presented the Fountain with its Charlie Award for overall achievement of excellence in Theatre. The Fountain was instrumental in launching, hosting and guiding the Deaf West Theatre Company at the Fountain in 1991. Fountain projects have been seen in major theaters around the country, internationally and around the world and have been made into a CBS Movie-for-Television and a BBC Radio Drama. New plays developed at the Fountain Theatre have won the PEN USA Literary Award for Drama, been named PEN Award Finalists 3 times, the Elliot Norton Award for Best New Play, LA Drama Critics Circle Awards, the Edinburgh Fringe First Award, the California Governor’s Media Access Award, and many other honors. Recent Fountain highlights include being honored with the 2014 Ovation Award for Best Season and the 2014 BEST Award for overall excellence from the Biller Foundation; the Fountain play Bakersfield Mist in London’s West End starring Kathleen Turner and Ian McDiarmid; the two-month sold-out run of Citizen: An American Lyric; the 25th Anniversary Gala at the Redbury Hotel; and the last six Fountain productions consecutively highlighted as Critic's Choice in the Los Angeles Times. Under the guidance of Producing Artistic Director Deborah Lawlor, the Fountain is also the premier venue for Flamenco music and dance in Los Angeles. Since 1990 it has produced over 600 world-class Flamenco concerts on its intimate stage and nine seasons at the 1200-seat Ford Amphitheater. The Fountain has also toured Flamenco projects throughout the Western United States. The Fountain's Forever Flamenco is in its 14th year. CAST Bokkie Philip Solomon Nukain Mabuza Thomas Silcott* Elmarie Kleynhans Suanne Spoke* Jonathan Sejake Gilbert Glenn Brown* *Members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. Setting: A hillside in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa, 1981 and 2003. There will be one intermission Who’s Who GILBERT GLENN BROWN (Jonathan Sejake) BFA, Tisch School of the Arts. Theater credits include Gospel at Colonus (Ebony Repertory Theatre Company), The Brother Size, In the Red & Brown Water and Live From Death Row… The Scottsboro Boys (Fountain Theatre), Spunk, (True Colors Theatre Company), Rio, The Musical (2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival), Martin: Before the Dream (NEC), A Time to Love, Charleston Olio, Harriet Jacobs (Kansas City Rep), Civil War Christmas (Huntington Theater), Forgive Me (NY International Fringe Festival), TopDog/UnderDog, (Seattle Rep/Circle Theatre Group), Miss Evers Boys (The Complex), DWB in Beverly Hills (Matrix Theatre). Some of his film & TV credits include Dreamgirls, Rain, Children of the Struggle, recurring this Fall on The Inspectors, recurring on Mercy, ER, The O.C., Cold Case, Shark, CSI: Miami, The Shield. gilbertglennbrown.com THOMAS SILCOTT (Nukain Mabuza) is happy to be performing his second production at The Fountain Theatre and his second premiere of an Athol Fugard play with them. Happy 25th Anniversary! Past projects include Bring In Da Noise/ Bring In Da Funk (Broadway Tour), To Kill A Mockingbird (Alliance Theatre), As You Like It (Colorado Shakespeare Festival), Our Town (Gloucester Stage Company), Othello (Kingsmen Shakespeare Company), Master Harold and The Boys (The Colony Theatre), Coming Home (The Fountain Theatre & Berkeley Repertory Theatre), Paint Your Wagon (Geffen Playhouse). T.V. and Film credits include Gods and Generals, Girlfriends, Desperate Housewives, The Others, Entourage, Raising The Bar, Criminal Minds: Beyond Boarders, Rosewood. Tom is a recipient of an Ovation and an L.A. Weekly award and a nominee for two N.A.A.C.P. awards. PHILIP SOLOMON (Bokkie) lives in Santa Ana, California and is a seventh grader at Santiago Charter Middle School in Orange, CA. His credits include Sacrificing Simone by Aretha Thomas (Porticos Art Space in Pasadena), Sleeping Beauty and Her Winter Knight (Lithgow Family Productions at the Pasadena Playhouse), back-up dancer to Hannah Kirby on season 8 of NBC’s The Voice, a co- starring role on the “Fresno Girl” episode of Nickelodeon’s Sam and Cat and a national commercial for Hilton Homewood Suites. He is a member of St Mary's Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Culver City. SUANNE SPOKE (Elmarie Kleynhans) is a multi-award winning actor who can currently be seen recurring on Switched at Birth and in the Academy Award winning film, Whiplash. TV credits include Criminal Minds, Happy Endings, Private Practice, and she appears in a very funny special feature on the DVD of Once Upon A Time. She will be seen in Christopher Guest’s new film Mascots and the upcoming indie feature Wild Prairie Rose. Having appeared on many local stages including Company of Angels, the Road, Deaf West, Inside the Ford with the wonderful Fountain Theatre, Suanne has won the Ovation Award for Best Actress in both David’s Mother and Napoli Milionaria and was also nominated for Streetcar Named Desire at Deaf West Theatre. She currently is on the faculty of California Institute of the Arts teaching acting in the Graduate Film Directing Program and is producing, along with her husband, K.C. Marsh, the documentary Warne Marsh: An Improvised Life. Thank you all here at the Fountain Theatre for this fantastic opportunity. ATHOL FUGARD (Playwright) is South Africa’s most significant and internationally acclaimed playwright. For over fifty years he has written soul-searing plays which have moved audiences around the world. He has been working in the theatre as a playwright, director and actor in South Africa, England and the United States for over fifty years. In 2014, he was the first African recipient of a Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award, Japan’s highest honor in the arts. In June 2011, he received a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award. In November 2011 he was the inaugural Humanitas Visiting Professor of Drama at Oxford University. As an actor, he has been seen on stage in South Africa, London, Broadway, Off-Broadway and in regional theatres across the United States. His film credits as an actor include The Road to Mecca, Gandhi, and The Killing Fields. As an author, his plays include: No-Good Friday, Nongogo, Blood Knot, Hello and Goodbye, People are Living, There, Boesman and Lena, Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act, Sizwe Banzi is Dead, Dimetos, The Island, A Lesson From Aloes, ‘Master Harold’ …and the Boys, The Road to Mecca, A Place With the Pigs, My Children! My Africa!, Playland, Valley Song, The Captain’s Tiger, Sorrows and Rejoicings, Exits and Entrances, Victory, Coming Home, The Train Driver, The Bird Watchers, The Blue Iris, The Shadow of the Hummingbird and The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek. His novel Tsotsi was adapted into a film which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film (2006). He has published his autobiographical memoir Cousins. In 2010, a new theatre in Cape Town was named The Fugard Theatre and in 2012, the Signature Theatre in New York City dedicated its season to Fugard. The Fountain Theatre enjoys a fifteen year artistic association with Fugard, producing seven premieres of his new plays since 2000. The Fountain Theatre is Fugard’s artistic home in the western United States. SIMON LEVY (Director) has been the Producing Director of the Fountain Theatre since 1993. The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle honored him with the Milton Katselas Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing; and he was nominated for the 2015 Zelda Fichandler Award in Directing. In 2015 he directed the critically acclaimed production of Reborning by Zayd Dohrn.