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Leslie Lee's The First Breeze of Summer Opens NEC Season
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Signature Theatre Company kicks off its 2008-2009 Season celebrating the historic Negro Ensemble Company with Leslie Lee's award-winning The First Breeze of Summer. The play opened at the St. Marks Playhouse in 1975 under the direction of Douglas Turner Ward, NEC Artistic Director, and starring Ethel Ayler, Charles Brown, Carl Crudup, Peter DeMaio, Frances Foster, Moses Gunn, Bebe Drake Hooks, Janet League, Anthony McKay, Barbara Montgomery, Lou Myers, Petronia, Reyno, and Mr. Ward himself. This production also included production stage manager Horacena J. Taylor, and designers Edward Burbridge (sets), Mary Mease Warren (costumes), and Sandra L. Ross (lights). Actors Moses Gunn and Reyno received Obie Awards for their off-Broadway performances, and Lee received an Obie for Best New American Play and the Outer Critics Circle award. The lauded production transferred to the Palace Theatre on Broadway in June 1975. In 1976 The First Breeze of Summer received a Tony nomination for Best Play, and a television adaptation of the acclaimed play aired on PBS.
Signature is thrilled to welcome back Signature Associate Artist Ruben Santiago-Hudson as director of The First Breeze of Summer. Signature audiences know Santiago-Hudson from his acclaimed production of Seven Guitars as part of Signature's 2006-2007 August Wilson Series. Santiago-Hudson has also been seen in Negro Ensemble Company productions of Charles Fuller's A Soldier's Play and Lonne Elder III's Ceremonies in Dark Old Men.
Santiago-Hudson is joined by past collaborators, including costume designer Karen Perry and composer Bill Sims, Jr., both from Seven Guitars. The First Breeze of Summer also marks the return of lighting designer Marcus Doshi, following his work on last season's Queens Boulevard (the musical) by Charles Mee. New to Signature is sound designer David Margolin Lawson. Two cast members take the stage again at Signature's Peter Norton Space: Tuck Milligan (Lanford Wilson's Book of Days) and Brenda Pressley (Seven Guitars). They join fellow actors Harvy Blanks, Yaya DaCosta, Sandra Daley, Crystal Anne Dickinson, Brandon Dirden, Jason Dirden, Quincy Dunn Baker, Marva Hicks, John Earl Jelks, Gilbert Owuor, Keith Randolph Smith, and Leslie Uggams. Signature is delighted to welcome these new and returning artists as we commence this new season in celebration of this historic and monumental company.
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