Adolph Caesar was an American film and theater actor. Known for his signature deep voice, Caesar was a staple of off-Broadway as a member of the Negro Ensemble Company, and as a voiceover artist for numerous film trailers. He earned widespread acclaim for his performance as Sgt. Vernon Waters in Charles Fuller's Pulitzer Prize-winning A Soldier's Play, a role he reprised in the 1984 film adaptation A Soldier's Story, for which he received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations, and won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture.
Judyann Elder is an American actress, director, and writer. Elder played Nadine Waters on the FOX sitcom Martin. She also played Harriette Winslow on CBS Family Matters for the remaining eight episodes of its ninth and final season after the departure of Jo Marie Payton. Elder is also a veteran of the stage who has appeared in scores of theatrical productions throughout the United States and Europe.
Will Eno is an American playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. His play, Thom Pain was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 2005. His play The Realistic Joneses appeared on Broadway in 2014, where it received a Drama Desk Special Award and was named Best Play on Broadway by USA Today, and best American play of 2014 by The Guardian. His play The Open House was presented Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre in 2014 and won the Obie Award for Playwriting as well as other awards, and was on both TIME Magazine and Time Out New York 's Top Ten Plays of 2014.
Robert Hooks is an American actor, producer, and activist. Along with Douglas Turner Ward and Gerald S. Krone, he founded The Negro Ensemble Company. The Negro Ensemble Company is credited with the launch of the careers of many major black artists of all disciplines, while creating a body of performance literature over the last thirty years, providing the backbone of African-American theatrical classics. Additionally, Hooks is the sole founder of two significant black theatre companies: the D.C. Black Repertory Company, and New York's Group Theatre Workshop.
Austin Campbell Pendleton is an American actor, playwright, theatre director, and instructor.
Hattie Winston is an American film, television and Broadway actress. She is known for her roles as Margaret Wyborn on Becker, Lucy Carmichael in Rugrats, The Rugrats Movie, and the spin off series All Grown Up! and as a cast member of the PBS children's series The Electric Company.
Stephen McKinley Henderson is an American actor. Henderson trained at Juilliard School for acting and later became a resident member of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis from 1976 to 1981. He came to prominence as a character actor often performing the plays of August Wilson. He has received nominations for two Tony Awards, a Drama Desk Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. Vulture named Henderson as one of "The 32 Greatest Character Actors Working Today".
The Gospel at Colonus is an African-American musical version of Sophocles's tragedy, Oedipus at Colonus. The show was created in 1983 by the experimental-theatre director Lee Breuer, one of the founders of the seminal American avant-garde theatre company Mabou Mines, and composer Bob Telson. The musical was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The show had a brief run on Broadway in 1988.
Lois Arlene Smith is an American actress whose career spans eight decades. She made her film debut in the 1955 drama film East of Eden, and later played supporting roles in a number of movies, including Five Easy Pieces (1970), Resurrection (1980), Fatal Attraction (1987), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Falling Down (1993), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), Dead Man Walking (1995), Twister (1996), Minority Report (2002), The Nice Guys (2016), Lady Bird (2017), and The French Dispatch (2021).
A Soldier's Play is a play by American playwright Charles Fuller. Set on a US Army installation in the segregation-era South, the play is a loose adaptation of Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd, and follows the murder investigation of the Sergeant in an all-black unit. The play uses a murder mystery to explore the complicated feelings of anger and resentment that some African Americans have toward one another, and the ways in which many black Americans have absorbed white racist attitudes.
The Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) is a New York City-based theater company and workshop established in 1967 by playwright Douglas Turner Ward, producer-actor Robert Hooks, and theater manager Gerald S. Krone, with funding from the Ford Foundation. The company's focus on original works with themes based in the black experience with an international perspective created a canon of theatrical works and an audience for writers who came later, such as August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, and others.
Frances Helen Foster was an American film, television and stage actress. In addition to being an actress, Foster was also an award–winning stage director and a founding member of the Negro Ensemble Company. Moreover, in 1955, she became the first African American to appear in a nationally broadcast television commercial.
Douglas Turner Ward was an American playwright, actor, director, and theatrical producer. He was noted for being a founder and artistic director of the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC). He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1974 for his role in The River Niger, which he also directed.
John Ford Noonan Jr. was an American actor, playwright, and screenwriter. He is best known for his Off-Broadway hit two-hander comedy A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking. Noonan's first major production was the 1969 play The Year Boston Won the Pennant; he continued writing throughout the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, completing more than 30 plays in total.
Judy Dearing was an American costume designer, dancer, and choreographer. She is best known for designing costumes for a wide range of theater and musical productions, including Charles Fuller's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama A Soldier's Play and the 1976 stage adaptation of Ntozake Shange's book for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.
Ruth Attaway was an American film and stage actress. Among the films she appeared in are Raintree County (1957), Porgy and Bess (1959) and Being There (1979).
Robert Christian was an American actor.
Harold "Hal" DeWindt was an American producer, director, actor, and model. He worked to increase opportunities for African Americans in the arts.
Mia Barron is an American actress. She won the Lucille Lortel Award for her performance in the Lincoln Center production of The Coast Starlight, an Obie award for her performance in Hurricane Diane at New York Theatre Workshop, as well as a second Obie and a Drama Desk Award for her work in the ensemble of the Off Broadway production of The Wolves. She co-created, along with director Lars Jan, a theatrical adaptation of Joan Didion's The White Album, which premiered in New York to sold out houses at BAM's Harvey Theatre as part of the Next Wave Festival. She is known for her extensive New York City theater credits, alongside her television and independent film work, most recently Half Empty Half Full, which received a New York Film Award nomination for Best Ensemble. She is also known as the voice of Molotov and Sally Impossible on the Cartoon Network's long-running comic science-fiction series, The Venture Bros.
Charles Weldon was an American actor, director, educator, singer, and songwriter. He was the artistic director of the Negro Ensemble Company for thirteen years. He was the co-founder of the Alumni of this company, and directed many of their productions. During his career he worked with Denzel Washington, James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson, Alfre Woodard, Muhammad Ali, and Oscar Brown Jr.
