THE WILMA THEATER presents the world premiere of

Yellowman

Philadelphia, PA - The Wilma Theater presents the world premiere of Dael Orlandersmith's Yellowman, as the third play in the 2001-2002 season. Directed by The Wilma Theater's co-Artistic Director Blanka Zizka, Yellowman is a co-production with the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey and the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut. Yellowman begins previews at the Wilma on February 13, opens February 20, and runs through March 17, 2002. Tickets range from $7 - $39 and can be purchased by calling (215) 546-7824 or online at www.wilmatheater.org.

In 1998, Orlandersmith began to work on Yellowman with Blanka Zizka as participants in the Sundance Theatre Laboratory in Utah, at Robert Redford's Sundance Institute. They both returned there in 2001 to complete a draft of the script. The resulting work has received numerous national commendations including The Roger L. Stevens Award, granted by The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, in recognition of Orlandersmith's "exceptional promise;" and the prestigious national AT&T:OnStage� grant, a program that supports world premieres of contemporary theatre, reflecting a commitment to innovation and diversity in the theatre arts, with particular attention to the work of women and artists of diverse cultures.

The Philadelphia Inquirer called Orlandersmith "a spellbinding shaman" and The New York Times said, "Orlandersmith seems determined to defy stereotypes and break new ground."

The Wilma presented another of Orlandersmith's works, The Gimmick, as part of their Wilma2 series last season.

Yellowman tells the tale of Eugene and Alma, two innocent soulmates growing up together in the South. A two-character memory play, it is told through the eyes of a dark-skinned African American woman and a light or "yellow" skinned man. Eager to escape the confines of their small town Southern upbringing, Eugene and Alma go from being instant soulmates, playing Batman and singing Monkees songs, to sharing the trials and tribulations of adolescence and young adulthood. They both dream of reinventing themselves and discover how they have been marked by the demons of their parents' and their own pasts. They learn, too late, that nothing is as insurmountable as the color of one's skin. Yellowman features Orlandersmith as Alma and Howard Overshown as Eugene.

Dael Orlandersmith (playwright/Alma) was born in East Harlem and raised in East Harlem and the South Bronx. Her theatrical training includes HB Studio, Hunter College and American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Film and television credits include Hal Hartley's Amateur and Spin City. Orlandersmith has toured extensively with the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (known as "Real Live Poetry") throughout the United States, Europe and Australia. She is the recent recipient of the Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Artists. As a playwright, Orlandersmith won an OBIE Award for Beauty's Daughter, a story about a woman who yearns to free herself from her soul-deadening surroundings. She starred in Beauty's Daughter at American Place Theatre in New York. Monster premiered at New York Theatre Workshop in 1996, and tells the story of a girl who imagines a life in the rock-'n'-roll bohemia of Manhattan's Lower East Side. In 1998, The Gimmick premiered at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey. In The Gimmick, a woman escapes from her brutal reality to the library bookshelves, where she dreams of becoming a writer in Paris. Vintage Books published a collection of her plays .

Howard Overshown (Eugene) Howard most recently appeared with Phylicia Rashad in the New York Roundabout Theatre production of Blue. Other theatre productions include The Great White Hope at Arena Stage in Washington, DC, My Lord What A Morning at the Kennedy Center, Merry Wives of Windsor, Twelfth Night and Macbeth at the Shakespeare Theatre, and The Tempest and Great Expectations at The Folger Theatre. Howard was a Tae Kwon Do Gold & Silver Medal winner in the Junior Olympics.

Blanka Zizka (Director) has been the Co-Artistic Director of the Wilma Theater since 1981. She has directed over 40 plays and musicals. She was awarded the first Barrymore Award for Best Direction of a Play for Cartwright's Road, and, in November 1995, she and the cast of Road presented their production at the Prague International Festival in the Czech Republic. Ms. Zizka directed Jiler and Leslee's Avenue X (Barrymore Winner, Best Overall Production of a Musical and Harold Prince Award for Direction of a Musical), Wright's Quills (Barrymore Winner, Best Overall Production of a Play) and The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard (Barrymore winner, Best Overall Production of a Play, Best Direction of a Play). Her other favorite productions include Orwell's Animal Farm, O'Neill's The Hairy Ape, Ionesco's Macbett, Fugard's Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act and Playland, Dulack's Incommunicado, Sherman's When She Danced, Stoppard's Travesties, Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, Freed's The Psychic Life of Savages, Klavan's and Pen's Bed and Sofa, Sherman's Patience, Sherwood's Spin and Carr's Portia Coughlan, which she directed for the McCarter Theatre. She also directed Yellowman at the McCarter Theatre Center and will direct it at the Long Wharf Theatre in April 2002.

Klara Zieglerova (Set Designer) has designed for various theatres across the country, including the set for The Search for Signs of The Intelligent Life in The Universe, at The Booth Theater on Broadway. Off-Broadway her credits include: First Love, What You Get and What You Expect (New York Theater Workshop), The Shaughraun, Eclipsed, Invasions and Legacies (Irish Repertory Theater), Mirandolina (Pearl Theater Company), The Sirens (Willow Cabin Theater Company). She built the set for Saturday Night Fever in Holland. Regionally, she has created sets for God's Man in Texas (Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Cincinnati Playhouse), The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (Seattle Repertory Theater, McCarter Theater, Theater on the Square San Francisco), Light Up the Sky (Williamstown Theatre Festival), God's Man in Texas (2000 Carbonell Award), The Music Lesson (Florida Stage), The Real Thing (Intiman Theater), Missing Footage (Old Globe Theater), Love's Fire (Berkshire Theatre Festival), Coyote on a Fence, Tatjana in Color (Contemporary American Theater Festival, Urban Stages), and Mrs. Warren's Profession, Good Person of Szechwan (Yale Repertory Theatre). Ms. Zieglerova is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

Janus Stefanowicz (Costume Designer) has designed for many Philadelphia theatres including The Wilma Theater (most recently Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Patience, Passion, Perfect Pie, Black Comedy, The Real Inspector Hound, Spin, The Invention of Love, Orpheus Descending, Love and Anger and The Cripple of Inishmaan), Philadelphia Festival Theater for New Plays, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Philadelphia Young Playwrights Festival, Arden Theatre Company and The People's Light & Theatre Company. She earned an MA in Theater at Villanova University and an MFA at Temple University. She teaches costume design at The University of Pennsylvania and the Villanova Graduate Theater Department. Since 1995, Ms. Stefanowicz has been nominated for six Barrymore Awards, and, in 1998, won the Barrymore Award for Best Costume Design for On the Razzle for The Wilma Theater.

Russell H. Champa (Lighting Designer) Previous Wilma credits include Patience, Perfect Pie, The Invention of Love (Barrymore Award Winner), Bed and Sofa, The Psychic Life of Savages, The Threepenny Opera, Quills (Barrymore Award Winner) and Avenue X. Broadway credits include God Said "Ha" at the Lyceum Theatre. Other New York credits include Circle Repertory Theatre, The Barrow Group, East Coast Artists and Zena Group. Regional credits include: Trinity Repertory Company, Providence; Delaware Theatre Company, Wilmington; The Actors' Gang, Los Angeles; The Shakespeare Theatre, DC ; and Dallas Theater Center, Dallas.

Elliott Sharp (Composer/multi-instrumentalist/producer) leads the groups Orchestra Carbon, Tectonics, and Terraplane. His compositions have been performed by the Symphony of the Hessischer Rundfunk, the Ensemble Modern, Continuum, the Orchestra of the SEM Ensemble, Kronos Quartet, Zeitkratzer, the Soldier String Quartet, Meridian String Quartet, and the Quintet of the Americas. His collaborators have included qawaali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, cello innovator Frances-Marie Uitti, sci-fi writers Jack Womack and Lucius Shepard; blues legend Hubert Sumlin; turntablists DJ Soulslinger and Christian Marclay; and Bachir Attar, leader of the Master Musicians of Jahjouka. Sharp composed music and sound design for computer artist Perry Hoberman's virtual 3d installation Timetable that won the Grand Prize at the 1999 NTT

ICC Bienalle in Tokyo. He formed zOaR Records in 1978 to release his own and other extreme musics and produced the critically acclaimed compilations State of the Union and Peripheral Vision. Sharp's latest CD releases include SyndaKit with Orchestra Carbon on zOaR, Terraplane:Blues For Next, and Tectonics:Errata, as well as the latest State of the Union 2.001 on the Electronic Music Foundation label. His interactive string/computer installation, Chromatine, was just premiered at the gallery of the School of the Boston Museum Of Fine Arts.

AT&T:OnStage is an initiative of AT&T, administered by the Theatre Communications Group. Since 1985, this program has supported world premieres of contemporary theatre, reflecting a commitment to innovation and diversity in the theatre arts, with particular attention to the work of women and artists of diverse cultures. AT&T:OnStage assists productions by providing financial assistance as well as selected promotional support. To date, seventy-two new works have been supported at seventy-nine theatre organizations in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

The Wilma Theater has grown to national and international prestige in the arts community. Jiri Zizka's staging of George Orwell's 1984 was presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and at the Joyce Theater in New York. The Wilma co-produced Vaclav Havel's Temptation at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and a PBS broadcast of Largo Desolato, a feature film directed by Jiri Zizka, which was adapted by Tom Stoppard from Vaclav Havel's play. In Philadelphia, Zizka-led productions have received 26 Barrymore Awards, more than any other theater, including five for the East Coast premiere production of Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love, which was produced the following year on Broadway by The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The Wilma Theater has received high critical acclaim from The New York Times, The New York Post, Time Magazine, USA Today, The Washington Post and The Chicago Tribune.

For more information on The Wilma Theater and its programming contact The Wilma Theater Box Office at (215) 546-STAGE or visit us online at www.wilmatheater.org.

Yellowman at The Wilma Theater runs from February 13 - March 17, 2002. Ticket prices range from $7-$39, with discounts available for seniors and groups of 10 or more, and special discounted tickets for students. Tickets are available at the Wilma Box Office:

Phone: (215) 546-7824

Fax: (215) 893-0895

Email: tickets@wilmatheater.org

Online: www.wilmatheater.org

In person: Broad & Spruce Streets, Philadelphia

Hours: Monday and non-performance days 10:30am - 5:00pm

Alma Dael Orlandersmith

Eugene Howard Overshown

Playwright Dael Orlandersmith

Director Blanka Zizka

Set Designer Klara Zieglerova

Costume Designer Janus Stefanowicz

Lighting Designer Russell H. Champa

Composer/Multi-Instrumentalist Elliott Sharp

Dramaturg Janice Paran