How I Learned What I Learned April 14-25, 2021
Don’t miss this co-production with Norfolk State University Theatre Company and Virginia Arts Festival, August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned will feature Anthony Mark Stockard (The Wiz, Parchman Hour: Songs and Stories of the '61 Freedom Riders) as August Wilson. The one-man staged reading will grace the Virginia Arts Festival’s new outdoor venue, Bank St. Stage, located in downtown Norfolk following all COVID protocols and social distancing guidelines. How I Learned What I Learned will run until April 25th.
"Wilson’s pride, humor, eloquence, anger, storytelling gifts, and general eagerness to soak up experience: It’s all there." - The Boston Globe
Be the first to see an event on Bank Street Stage!
Actor ANTHONY MARK STOCKARD *
Saxophone/Ensemble MICHAEL GIAMILLE
Harmonica ANDREW ALLI
Stage Manager BRITTANY SANDFORD *
Directed by Dr. Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, Ph.D.
* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States
Cast and Creative Team Bios
ANTHONY MARK STOCKARD * (Actor/ Producing Artistic Director, Norfolk State University Theatre Company) returns to Virginia Stage after having previously appeared in four VSC productions of A Christmas Carol as Jacob Marley and The Ghost of Christmas Present; The Parchman Hour as Martin Luther King Jr., The Wiz as Uncle Henry, I Sing the Rising Sea as Langston Hughes and The Tempest as King Alonzo. His most recent credits include TV/Film: Surrogates (with Bruce Willis) Off-Broadway: Old Comedy… at Classic Stage Company; Regional: No Child… (Connecticut Critics Circle Award Winner) at Hartford Theatreworks; Intimate Apparel at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre; The Three Musketeers at Double Edge Theatre Company; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and A Christmas Carol at Berkshire Theater Festival; The Taming of the Shrew, Coriolanus, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and The Four Spirits at Alabama Shakespeare Festival. He is honored to serve as the Producing Artistic Director of Virginia’s most nationally recognized collegiate theatre program and America’s #1 Most Nationally Recognized HBCU Theatre Program of the last five years, NSU Theatre Company. Since his arrival to NSU, drama and theatre has gained historic national recognition and acclaim and record-breaking audience attendance. He is an Associate Professor and the Founding Director of the brand new BA in Drama & Theatre Program at Norfolk State University. Recent honors received were national awards from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for Distinguished Production & Performance Ensemble and Distinguished Performance by an Actor in a Play for the production The Brother’s Size. The production beat out more than 1,300 productions that were entered in the festival and involved more than 200,000 students nationwide. The company won Best Fine Arts Program at the HBCU Awards in Washington, D.C. where Stockard was one of four national finalists for Male Faculty Member of the Year. He is an inaugural recipient of the 50 Under 50 Award at his alma mater, Alabama State University, is a presidentially appointed NSU Honors College Senior Fellow and is the recipient of the NSU Theatre Company’s 2016 Outstanding Dedication & Service Award and NSU Student Government Association’s 2016 Honor & Appreciation Award. He is the former Producing Artistic Director of Aldridge Repertory Theatre in Birmingham, Alabama. The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival has honored him with multiple Meritorious Achievement Awards for Excellence in Directing for his productions of Topdog/Underdog, The Brothers Size, Black Nativity, Broke-ology, and The Color Purple. Anthony has directed more than 60 productions for professional and university stages. He holds memberships and affiliations with Stage Directors & Choreographers Society, Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, The Association for Theatre in Higher Education and The Society of American Fight Directors. He currently sits on the boards of Region IV of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. He holds a M.F.A. in Theatre Arts from Brandeis University and a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Alabama State University. www.anthonystockard.com / www.nsu.edu/drama
Michael Giamille (Saxophone) reigns from Chesapeake, VA. After receiving his bachelor's degree in Music Media from Norfolk State University, Michael began to aggressively pursue his music full time. He blends his technique on the saxophone with modern-day production to create a fresh sound that touches a variety of emotions. He recently was selected to be a part of the gospel documentary Voices of Fire on Netflix produced by Pharrell. On his latest album, 2020 Clear Vision The Age of Self Love he guides us through a self-meditation with hits like Pain Medicine Refill and Hot Tea and Incense. His ultimate goal is to create visions to change the culture for the better.
AUGUST WILSON (April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) 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 twentieth 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 (1987); and for The Piano Lesson (1990); a Tony Award for Fences; Great Britain’s Olivier Award for Jitney; as well as eight New York Drama Critics Circle Awards for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fences, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson, Two Trains Running, Seven Guitars, Jitney, and Radio Golf. Additionally, 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 many fellowships and awards, including Rockefeller and Guggenheim Fellowships in Playwrighting, the Whiting Writers Award, 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. Additionally, Mr. Wilson was posthumously inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2007. Mr. Wilson 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.
Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, Ph.D. (Director/Sound Designer) is a Professor of Graduate Pedagogy in Acting and Directing at Virginia Commonwealth University and Co-Artistic Director of The Conciliation Lab, a non-profit social justice theatre company whose mission is “We create transformative experiences through the power of story.” www.theconciliationlab.org Tawnya is a playwright, director, actor, poet, writer/scholar-activist and teacher. She has appeared with the Tony Award Winning company of the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Broadway production of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the rainbow is enuf” performing in both the national and international touring companies. Her television, film, industrial, voice over and commercial credits are extensive including a recent Greater Richmond Transit Company ad campaign and is featured voice talent for the video game HALO. Richmond Theatre directing credits include “A Raisin in the Sun” for the Virginia Rep’s Signature Season, “Between Riverside & Crazy” for Cadence Theatre, “A Street Car Named Desire” for the Firehouse Theatre and “The Top of Bravery” for Quill Theatre in association with the African American Repertory Theatre, which won a Richmond Theatre Critics Circle ARTSIE for Best Original Work in 2017. Some favored directing projects include James Baldwin’s “Blues for Mister Charlie” at the Modlin Center for the Arts, “For Colored Girls…” for A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle and the Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, “An Octoroon” at Theatre Lab, “Passing Strange” for Firehouse Theatre and after “Fences” at the Rep. Dr. Pettiford-Wates is a contributing author in a new book titled, Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches, edited by Sharell Luckett and Tia Shaffer, Routledge, NY, NY, 2016. Her chapter is titled “Ritual Poetic Drama within the African Continuum: the journey from Shakespeare to Shange” and recently published in, African American Arts: Activism, Aesthetics, and Futurity, edited by Sharrell D. Luckett, Rutgers University Press, her book chapter is titled; “Behind the Mask of uncle tomism and the Performance of Blackness.” Pettiford-Wates is a member of: Actor’s Equity Association (AEA), American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG), Associate Member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC).
Simon Levy (Scenic Designer) is the Assistant Professor of Drama and Technic Director for the NSU Theater Company. Recent design credits include The Colored Museum, Eclipsed, and Fences, all at Norfolk State University. He is proud to be a part of this production and be a part of bringing live theatre events back to the Hampton Roads area.
Stephanie Hawks (Costume Designer)as been designing costumes for over forty years in regional and educational theatres across the country. Some of her stage design credits include Peach State Summer Theatre, Playwright’s Repertory Festival, and Jacksonville University in Florida; University of Connecticut and Eastern Connecticut State University in Connecticut; Theatre at Monmouth and Acadia Repertory Theatre in Maine; and the University of South Dakota. Her indie film credits include Bordando La Frontera, a Lobo Films production; Somewhere in the Midwest, a Dustin Whitehead production; and A Cross in Time, by Devlin Mann. Her costume technician credits include The Goodspeed Opera House and Longwharf Theatre in Connecticut, Theatre by the Sea in Rhode Island, The Alhambra Dinner Theatre in Florida, and Virginia Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare by the Sea in Virginia. She has served The University of Texas Pan American as assistant professor of costume design and The University of North Carolina. Pembroke as a full time lecturer in design. She is currently Assistant Professor of Costume Design at Norfolk State University. She holds an MFA in costume design from the University of Connecticut and a BA in theatre from The University of West Florida.
Christopher Head (Lighting Designer)holds an MFA in Lighting Design from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music and a BA in Theatre at the University of North Texas. He is a professor at Norfolk State University and is a three-time recipient of The Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre’s Meritorious Achievement Award for his design work for The Rocky Horror Show and Spring Awakening. He spent a majority of his lighting career at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center where he designed lights for such prominent artists as Liza Minnelli, Ray Charles, and Bernadette Peters. His personal highlight of his work at the Meyerson was designing the lights for Susan G Komen Foundation’s Sing for the Cure which starred Maya Angelou.
J.C. NiGH (Assistant Sound Designer) is the resident sound engineer at the Virginia Stage Company. Usually you can find him mixing musicals at the Wells such as The Wiz, Ring of Fire, Always...Patsy Cline, and the newest version of A Christmas Carol. His past designs at Virginia Stage Company include Native Gardens, A Streetcar Named Desire, Santaland Diaries, and Pride and Prejudice. He is happy to be working with his cast and production staff to put another production together.
BRITTANY SANDFORD (Production Stage Manager and Production Coordinator) is so excited to be returning as a Production Stage Manager after A Christmas Carol and The Legend of Georgia McBride, previously spending the last five years acting as an Assistant Stage Manager, Wardrobe Supervisor, and Production Assistant at Virginia Stage Company. Regional Stage Manager Credits: Guys and Dolls (VSC), Santaland Diaries (VSC), Disgraced (VSC), Other Regional Credits in Wardrobe and Makeup Artistry: Hamilton (Chrysler Hall) The Color Purple (Norfolk State University), Always Patsy Cline (VSC), Les Misérables (Chrysler Hall), Book of Mormon (Chrysler Hall) and countless weddings in the Hampton Roads and Honolulu area.
TOM QUAINTANCE (Producing Artistic Director) is the sixth Artistic Director and the first Producing Artistic Director in Virginia Stage Company’s 42 year history. At the Wells, Tom has directed Pride and Prejudice and The Santaland Diaries, and Matilda The Musical. Tom just returned from Minneapolis, where he directed Twelfth Night at the Guthrie Theater. Previously as Artistic Director of Cape Fear Regional Theatre (CFRT), Tom produced over 35 plays and directed the World Premiere of Downrange: Voices from the Homefront, a play based on interviews with military spouses from Fort Bragg. Tom is an Associate Artist at PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill where he directed An Enemy of the People, Shipwrecked! An Entertainment, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, and The Little Prince. He also directed The Little Prince at the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. As the founder of FreightTrain Shakespeare in Los Angeles, he earned a Drama-Logue Award for his direction of Pericles. Other Los Angeles credits range from King Lear to The Devil With Boobs. A member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, Tom is a graduate of Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT) with a B.A. in Theatre and Economics, and the University of California, San Diego MFA directing program, where he was the assistant director on the original production of The Who’s Tommy. Tom and his wife Wallis are the proud parents of Mireille Julia and Annika Christine.
ADDITIONAL SHOW STAFF .
Wardrobe Supervisor ...................... Meg Murray
Technician .................................... Corey Brown
Sound Board Operator .............. Katie French