A Soldier’s Play

By Charles Fuller
Directed by Tony winner Kenny Leon
Starring Norm Lewis

A Roundabout Theatre national tour, Co-presented by The Human Race Theatre Company and Dayton Live at the Victoria Theatre. This 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning thriller, has rocketed back into the spotlight, thanks to this 2020 Tony Award®-winning Best Revival.

In 1944, on a Louisiana Army base, two shots ring out. A Black sergeant is murdered. And a series of interrogations triggers a gripping barrage of questions about sacrifice, service, and identity in America. The tour’s stop in Dayton will be its only Ohio appearance.

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Tickets
$25 - $79
Runtime
1 hour 50 minutes
(20-minute intermission)
Rating
pg13

The Human Race Theatre Company

Executive DirectorKappy Kilburn

Artistic DirectorEmily N. Wells

Creative ProducerTara Lail

Present:

Charles Fuller

Directed by Kenny Leon

Starring Norm Lewis

“A KNOCK-YOUR-SOCKS-OFF DRAMA. Breathe slowly and keep your heartbeat steady if you hope to make it through this one without breaking up into little pieces.”
–Marilyn Stasio, Variety

“A HIGHLY ENTERTAINING, STRIKINGLY TAUT DRAMA THAT YOU DON’T WANT TO END. A Soldier’s Play is powerful as ever after nearly 40 years.”
–Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

“A POTENT MASTERPIECE. Fuller’s well-told murder mystery remains a bracing slap of a drama, a thoughtful examination of American bigotry and the many tolls it exacts.”
–Greg Evans, Deadline

“BLISTERING AND RELEVANT, A Soldier’s Play still scalds.”
–David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

“A Soldier’s Play is a powerful story that seems to live eternally.”
–Trevor Noah, The Daily Show

“An explosive drama, it tells an enduring and urgent story, reverberating with a timeless message.”
–Joe Dziemianowicz, Theater News Online

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PRODUCTION BIOGRAPHIES

Kenny Leon Director

KENNY LEON is a Tony Award winning Broadway and television director. Most recently he directed The Underlying Chris at Second Stage Theater and this past summer’s acclaimed production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Delacorte/Shakespeare in the Park. Broadway: American Son; Children of a Lesser God; Holler If Ya Hear Me; A Raisin in the Sun (Tony Award 2014); The Mountaintop; Stick Fly; August Wilson’s Fences, Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf. Off-Broadway: Everybody’s Ruby, Emergence-SEE! (The Public); Smart People (Second Stage). Television: “American Son” (adapted for Netflix), “Hairspray Live!,” “The Wiz Live!,” “Steel Magnolias,” “Dynasty,” “In My Dreams.” Author, Take You Wherever You Go. director emeritus, Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company.

Credits: Biography courtesy of roundabouttheatre.org; photo of Kenny Leon by Lelund Durond Thompson

Dede Ayite Costume Design

Broadway: Slave Play, American Son, Children of a Lesser God. Select Off-Broadway: By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (Signature); The Secret Life of Bees, Marie and Rosetta (Atlantic); The Rolling Stone, The Royale (Lincoln Center); School Girls… (MCC); Toni Stone (Roundabout); Bella: An American Tall Tale (Playwrights Horizons). Worked regionally at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Steppenwolf, Arena Stage and more. Television: Netflix, Comedy Central; FOX Shortcoms. Awards: Obie, Lucille Lortel, Helen Hayes, Theatre Bay Area, Jeff Awards, four Drama Desk nominations.

Credits: Biography courtesy of roundabouttheatre.org

Dan Moses Schreier Sound Design

Broadway: with Kenny Leon, premieres of August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf, among many others. Awards: five Tony Award nominations, five Drama Desk Awards, Obie Award for Sustained Excellence, Lucille Lortel Award, NAACP Theatre Award. Fellow of the MacDowell Colony. This past summer, Dan composed the music for Coriolanus at the Delcorte Theater. This spring he will be designing James Lapine/Tom Kitt/Michael Korie’s new musical Flying Over Sunset at Lincoln Center.

Website: danmosesschreier.com

Credits: Biography courtesy of roundabouttheatre.org

Derek McLane Set Design

DEREK McLANE has designed over 360 productions for Broadway, Off- Broadway, internationally and for TV. Recent Broadway credits include Moulin Rouge!, Burn This, American Son, Children of a Lesser God, The Parisian Woman, The Price, Fully Committed, Beautiful, Noises Off, The Heiress, Nice Work If You Can Get It and 33 Variations (Tony Award), among others. He designed the Academy Awards for six years (Emmy Award) and has designed four live musicals for NBC including “Hairspray” (Emmy Award) and “The Wiz.”

Credits: Biography courtesy of roundabouttheatre.org

Allen Lee Hughes Lighting Design

Roundabout: Toni Stone, She Stoops to Conquer, Intimate Apparel. Broadway: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Clybourne Park, Having Our Say, Mule Bone, Once on this Island (Tony nomination), K2 (Tony nomination, Outer Critics Circle Award, Maharam Award), Strange Interlude (Tony nomination), Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Quilters. NY and Off-Broadway: The Public, Roundabout, Playwrights Horizons, others. Regional: Kennedy Center, Steppenwolf, Arena Stage, Guthrie, McCarter, Seattle Rep, Long Wharf, Goodman, Center Stage, Intiman, others. Associate Professor: NYU Tisch.

Credits: Biography courtesy of roundabouttheatre.org

^ Resident Artist with The Human Race Theatre Company

+ The director is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, an independent labor union

# United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829 of the IATSE is the union representing Scenic, Costume, Lighting, Sound and Projection Designers in Live Performances.

* Appearing through an Agreement between this theatre and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
° Equity Membership Candidate
Actors’ Equity Association (AEA), founded in 1913, represents more than 49,000 actors and stage managers in the United States. Equity seeks to advance, promote and foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society. Equity negotiates wages and working conditions, providing a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans. AEA is a member of the AFL-CIO, and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions. The Equity emblem is our mark of excellence. www.actorsequity.org

About The Playwright

Charles FullerPlaywright

CHARLES FULLER recently received the Dramatists Guild’s Flora Roberts Award for his extensive body of work. Mr. Fuller’s creative efforts involve a wide range of theatre, film and television. He was a member of The Negro Ensemble Company, where his Zooman and the Sign won him an Obie and A Soldier’s Play won him a Pulitzer Prize, Best American Play and an Edgar Award. Mr. Fuller’s adaptation of his play became the 1984 film A Soldier’s Story, which was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, and won a Writers Guild of America Award. He has written screenplays for CBS, PBS and Showtime. He has also mentored young playwrights at Cherry Lane Theatre and was commissioned by Cherry Lane to write a play, One Night, which opened there in 2014.

Credits: Biography courtesy of roundabouttheatre.org; photo of Charles Fuller by James McNee