Zooman and the Sign is an Obie Award-winning play by Charles Fuller. Set in Philadelphia in 1979, the play focuses on the murder of a 12-year-old African American girl in front of many local witnesses who refuse to reveal the killer despite the family's attempts for justice. [1] It was first produced on December 7, 1980 [2] Off-Broadway by the Negro Ensemble Company directed by Douglas Turner Ward and starring notable actors such as Giancarlo Esposito and Carol Lynn Maillard. The production earned Fuller an Obie Award for playwriting. [3]
In 2009 the play was revived Off-Broadway by the Signature Theatre Company directed by Stephen McKinley Henderson featuring Amari Cheatom, Rosalyn Coleman, and Ron Canada. [4] The text of the play is available through Samuel French.
In 1995, the play was adapted for television by Fuller himself, with Khalil Kain in the title role.[ citation needed ]
Dianne Evelyn Wiest is an American actress. She has won two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress for 1986's Hannah and Her Sisters and 1994's Bullets Over Broadway, one Golden Globe Award for Bullets Over Broadway, the 1997 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for Road to Avonlea, and the 2008 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for In Treatment. In addition, she was nominated for an Academy Award for 1989's Parenthood.
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.
Austin Campbell Pendleton is an American actor, playwright, theatre director, and instructor.
Esser Leopold "Lee" Breuer was an Obie Award-winning and Pulitzer-, Grammy-, Emmy- and Tony-nominated American playwright, theater director, academic, educator, filmmaker, poet, and lyricist. Breuer taught and directed on six continents.
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".
Marshall W. Mason is an American theater director, educator, and writer. Mason founded the Circle Repertory Company in New York City and was artistic director of the company for 18 years (1969–1987). He received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement in 1983. In 2016, he received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater.
Itamar Moses is an American playwright, author, producer and television writer. He gained acclaim for writing the book for the Broadway musical The Band's Visit (2017) receiving the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical. He wrote the play Completeness (2011) earning a nomination for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play. He wrote books for the musicals Nobody Loves You (2012), and Fortress of Solitude (2014). His latest play The Ally (2024) about a college teacher conflicted about signing a petition debuted at The Public Theatre.
Mabel Davis "Tina" Howe was an American playwright. In a career that spanned more than four decades, Howe's best-known works include Museum, The Art of Dining, Painting Churches, Coastal Disturbances, and Pride's Crossing.
Charles H. Fuller Jr. was an American playwright, best known for his play A Soldier's Play, for which he received the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2020 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play.
Ronald Ellis Canada is an American actor and producer, with a specialty in portraying judges and detectives. He is best known for One on One (2001–2004), The Shield (2003–2004), and Lone Star (1996).
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).
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.
Dennis Parichy is an American lighting designer. He won the 1980 Drama Desk Award for Talley's Folly and the Obie Award in 1981.
Annie Baker is an American playwright, film director, and teacher who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her play The Flick. Among her works are the Shirley, Vermont plays, which take place in the fictional town of Shirley: Circle Mirror Transformation, Nocturama, Body Awareness, and The Aliens. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2017. Her debut film Janet Planet released in 2023 to critical acclaim.
Signature Theatre Company is an American theatre based in Manhattan, New York. It was founded in 1991 by James Houghton and is now led by Artistic Director Paige Evans. Signature is known for their season-long focus on one artist's work. It has been located in the Pershing Square Signature Center since 2012.
David Cromer is an American theatre director, and stage, film, and TV actor. He has received recognition for his work on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in his native Chicago. Cromer has won or been nominated for numerous awards, including winning the Lucille Lortel Award and Obie Award for his direction of Our Town. He was nominated for the Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for his direction of The Adding Machine. In 2018, Cromer won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for The Band's Visit.
Les Waters is a British theatre director. Waters was the Artistic Director of the Actors Theatre of Louisville. He has directed plays Off-Broadway and also at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Actors Theatre.
Pam MacKinnon is an American theatre director. She has directed for the stage Off-Broadway, on Broadway and in regional theatre. She won the Obie Award for Directing and received a Tony Award nomination, Best Director, for her work on Clybourne Park. In 2013 she received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She was named artistic director of American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California on January 23, 2018.
Dave Malloy is an American composer, playwright, lyricist, singer, orchestrator, and actor. He has written several theatrical works, often based on classic works of literature. His most well known work is the Tony Award winning Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, an electropop opera based on War and Peace. His other works include Ghost Quartet, a song cycle about "love, death, and whiskey"; Preludes, a musical fantasia set in the mind of romantic composer Sergei Rachmaninoff; Octet, a chamber choir musical about internet addiction; and Moby-Dick, an adaptation of Herman Melville's classic novel.
Dominique Morisseau is an American playwright and actress from Detroit, Michigan. She has written more than nine plays, three of which are part of a cycle titled The Detroit Project. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2018.