E. Faye Butler & KenYatta Rogers Join Bowman Wright in Arena Stage's KING HEDLEY II

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces the full company for August Wilson's classic drama King Hedley II. Set in the 1980s Hill District of Pittsburgh, the ninth installment of Pulitzer Prize winner Wilson's acclaimed play cycle examining Black America follows a scarred ex-convict who struggles to turn his life around and lock away his past. The drama is directed by Timothy Douglas, who worked with the late playwright on the world premiere of Radio Golf and has directed eight plays out of Wilson's 10-play cycle. King Hedley II runs February 6-March 8, 2015 in the Fichandler Stage.

As previously announced, Bowman Wright stars as King, the returning ex-convict with seven years of prison haunting him. Wright, who was last seen at Arena Stage as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in The Mountaintop, is joined by returning Arena Stage cast members E. Faye Butler (Smokey Joe's Café, Pullman Porter Blues, Oklahoma!) as Ruby and KenYatta Rogers (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) as Mister. Making their Arena Stage debuts are Tony Award nominee André De Shields (Broadway's The Full Monty, Ain't Misbehavin') as Stool Pigeon, Jessica Frances Dukes (Playwrights Horizons' Bootycandy) as Tonya and Michael Anthony Williams (Round House's Two Trains Running) as Elmore.

"Playwrights like Eugene O'Neill wanted to write cycles of plays, but it was only August Wilson who completed his brilliant 10-play cycle," shares Artistic Director Molly Smith. "These plays are strong and contemporary and have already stood the test of time. Arena Stage has a long history of producing many plays in the cycle, from Fences to Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. I know Timothy Douglas and our terrific cast will take King Hedley II and deliver the powerful storytelling that August Wilson intended."

"August Wilson's seminal King Hedley II provides a searing insight into the complex life and trials of a black American man," adds Douglas. "Through powerful and stirring spoken word-operatic in scope-the triumphant arias from Hedley and his Pittsburgh Hill District crew provide the very ignition that has sent present-day America into the streets to voice its rallying cry 'Black Lives Matter'!"

August Wilson (Playwright) authored Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Fences, Two Trains Running, Jitney, King Hedley II and Radio Golf. These works explore the heritage and experience of African-Americans, decade-by-decade, over the course of the 20th century. His plays have been produced at regional theaters across the country and all over the world, as well as on Broadway. In 2003, Mr. Wilson made his professional stage debut in his one-man show, How I Learned What I Learned. Mr. Wilson's works garnered many awards including Pulitzer Prizes for Fences and The Piano Lesson; a Tony Award for Fences; an Olivier Award for Jitney; and eight New York Drama Critics Circle Awards. The cast recording of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom received a 1985 Grammy Award, and Mr. Wilson received a 1995 Emmy Award nomination for his screenplay adaptation of The Piano Lesson. Mr. Wilson's early works included the one-act plays The Janitor, Recycle, The Coldest Day of the Year, Malcolm X, The Homecoming and the musical satire Black Bart and the Sacred Hills. Mr. Wilson received Rockefeller and Guggenheim Fellowships in Playwriting, the Whiting Writers Award, the 2003 Heinz Award, was awarded a 1999 National Humanities Medal by the President of the United States and received numerous honorary degrees from colleges and universities, as well as the only high school diploma ever issued by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. He was an alumnus of New Dramatists, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a 1995 inductee into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and on October 16, 2005, Broadway renamed the theater located at 245 West 52nd Street, The August Wilson Theatre. Mr. Wilson was posthumously inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2007. He was born and raised in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and lived in Seattle, Washington at the time of his death. He is immediately survived by his two daughters, Sakina Ansari and Azula Carmen Wilson, and his wife, costume designer Constanza Romero.

Timothy Douglas (Director) makes his Arena Stage debut with this production of King Hedley II. Other Washington area credits include Two Trains Running, The Trip to Bountiful, Permanent Collection and A Lesson Before Dying at Round House; Insurrection: Holding History at Theatre Alliance (two Helen Hayes nominations); the world premiere of The Last Orbit of Billy Mars at Woolly Mammoth and his Caribbean-inspired Much Ado About Nothing at the Folger. Recent credits include the world premiere of Rajiv Joseph's The Lake Effect for Silk Road Rising (Chicago's Jeff Award for Best New Work), off-Broadway's Bronte: A Portrait Of Charlotte and the world premiere of August Wilson's Radio Golf for Yale Repertory Theatre. He is currently an Associate Artist at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, where he has directed Clybourne Park, The North Pool and the world premiere of Safe House, and served as Associate Artistic Director at Actors Theatre of Louisville, where he directed 10 productions including three Humana Festival premieres. Timothy has directed over 100 projects for ACT, Guthrie, Berkeley Rep, Center Theatre Group, South Coast Rep, Steppenwolf, Playmakers Rep, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Downstage (NZ), National Theatret (Norway), Milwaukee Rep and many others. He is also a Linklater voice instructor and has served on the faculties of ACT, USC, North Carolina School of the Arts, New Zealand Drama School and Emerson College and holds an MFA in acting from Yale.

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