Casting Announced For Signature Theatre's Production of THE DEATH OF THE LAST BLACK MAN IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD - Now Extended Through 12/11!

Casting is confirmed and tickets are now on sale for the Signature Theatre (Paige Evans, Artistic Director; Erika Mallin, Executive Director; James Houghton, Founder) production of The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, by Pulitzer Prize-winnerSuzan-Lori Parks and directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz. Parks is Signature's current Residency One playwright; her plays Venus, directed by Lear deBessonet, and The Red Letter Plays: In the Bloodand f-ing A, directed by Jo Bonney, will be presented in 2017.

The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World runs October 25 - December 11, 2016 with a Sunday, November 13 opening night in The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street between 9th and 10thAvenues). All tickets for the initial run of the production are $30 as part of the Signature Ticket Initiative: A Generation of Access. To purchase tickets for all Signature Productions, call Ticket Services at 212-244-7529 (Tues. - Sun., 11am - 6pm) or visit www.SignatureTheatre.org.

The cast includes William DeMeritt (HBO's The Normal Heart) as Voice on Thuh Tee V, Nike Kadri (Classic Stage's Iphigenia in Aulis) as Yes and Greens Black-Eyed Peas Cornbread, Patrena Murray (CTG's Father Comes Home from the Wars) as Ham, Reynaldo Piniella (The Erlkings at Theatre Row) as And Bigger and Bigger and Bigger, Julian Rozzell(Public's Father Comes Home from the Wars) as Old Man River Jordan, Roslyn Ruff (Signature's The Piano Lesson) as Black Woman with Fried Drumstick, Mirirai Sithole (Classic Stage's Mother Courage and Her Children) as Prunes and Prisms, David Ryan Smith (Public's The Comedy of Errors) as Before Columbus, Daniel J. Watts (Hamilton) as Black Man with Watermelon, Jamar Williams (Second Stage's Invisible Thread) as Lots of Grease and Lots of Pork,Amelia Workman (Second Stage's The Layover) as Queen-Then-Pharaoh Hatshepsut.

The design team includes Riccardo Hernandez (Scenic Design), Montana Blanco (Costume Design), Yi Zhao(Lighting Design), Palmer Hefferan (Sound Design), Hannah Wasileski (Projection Design), Raja Feather Kelly(Movement), Cookie Jordan (Wig Design). Terri K. Kohler is the Production Stage Manager. Casting by Telsey + Company.

A woman tries to feed her husband a fried drumstick. Dragons roam a flat earth. The last Black man in the whole entire world dies again. And again. Careening through memory and language, Parks explores and explodes archetypes of Black America with piercing insight and raucous comedy. A riotous theatrical event, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World hums with the heartbeat of improvisational jazz.

Tickets to the initial runs of all Signature Productions at The Pershing Square Signature Center are $30, part of the groundbreaking Signature Ticket Initiative: A Generation of Access, a program that guarantees affordable and accessible tickets to every Signature production through 2031. Serving as a model for theatres and performing arts organizations across the country, the Initiative was founded in 2005 and is made possible by lead partner The Pershing Square Foundation. Additional support provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation, Margot Adams, Rhoda Herrick and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.