Glyph Workshop Production by Christina Ham Opens Tomorrow

Hot on the heels of a successful run of Little Eyes at The Guthrie, The Workhaus Collective is proud to present a workshop production of Glyph, a play that tackles the legacy that slavery has left across the land and its long-lasting affects on a community.

Ezekiel Pomeroy, an impossibly ancient and disease-riddled former Slave Master, is finally dying after wielding over 300 years of tyranny on the Canaan Hall plantation. As one of the largest slave owners in the South, his insatiable evil and great violence has wrecked havoc, particularly among his African-American descendants. Lucy, the last of those descendants, is determined to confront him before he takes his last breath. She forces him to look at the damage he has caused
that has driven their family to the brink of extinction. As the deathwatch continues, we uncover the dark history that threatens not only to rip the family apart, but the community as well. Part tragedy, part psychological thriller, this play is panoramic in scope, covering not only one family¹s
journey, but touches on the whole saga of a people.

Playwright Christina Ham says of Glyph: ³This play captures what it means to come to terms with the darker side of a family¹s past by facing the complex relationship that slavery created between whites and blacks sharing the same household and how that complicated history has transformed itself in the 21st century. Glyph also examines what happens when a family line is on the
verge of becoming extinct - what fingerprints does a family leave behind to show that they existed and mattered.²

Glyph
Where: The Playwrights' Center, Waring Jones Theater, 2301 Franklin Ave E.,
Mpls MN
Dates: April 10-24
April 10, 2011 Opening
April 11 (pay-what-you-can),
April 15 ASL performance
April 15-17, April 21-24
Time: All shows at 7:30 p.m. except Sunday matinees at 2:00 p.m on April 10,
17, 24.
Ticket Prices: $8-$20 on a sliding scale except on April 11, 2011
(pay-what-you-can)

About Playwright Christina Ham

Christina Ham's plays have been developed both nationally and
internationally with the Center Theater Group, The Goodman Theater, The
Guthrie Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Penumbra Theatre, Off-Broadway at
the SPF Summer Play Festival, SteppingStone Theatre, and the Tokyo
International Arts Festival among others. Christina is the recipient of a
McKnight Advancement Grant and Jerome Fellowship from the Playwrights'
Center in Minneapolis, the Marianne Murphy Women & Philanthropy Award in
Playwriting, and a 2006 MacDowell Residency. She is a two-time nominee for
the Cherry Lane Theatre Mentorship Program, a nominee for the L. Arnold
Weissberger Award, and was nominated for the Center Theater Group's Richard
E. Sherwood Award for Distinguished Emerging Theater Artist. She has
received commissions from The Guthrie Theater, Ensemble Studio
Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and REDEYE among others. Her
feature-length screenplay Booker was a finalist for Tribeca Film Institute's
All Access program. Her plays are published by Heinemann, PlayScripts, Inc.,
and Smith and Kraus. A graduate of the University of Southern California and
UCLA's MFA Playwriting program, Christina is a Core Member of the
Playwrights' Center, a member playwright of the Workhaus Collective, and The
Dramatists Guild of America.

About Director Marion McClinton
Marion McClinton is a Tony-nominated director and actor, and is a long-time
resident of St. Paul. Mr. McClinton has been involved with the work of
August Wilson for many years, directing: the Broadway revival of Ma Rainey¹s
Black Bottom; the premiere of King Hedley II on Broadway, at Pittsburgh
Public Theatre, Seattle Repertory, and the Mark Taper Forum; Jitney
off-Broadway, at Second Stage, The Huntington Theatre Co., Studio Arena
Theatre, The Goodman Theatre, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Seattle Repertory,
and the Royal National Theatre. He has performed as Fielding in the 1985
version of Jitney at Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul, where he is a
company member; Gem of the Ocean at the Goodman Theatre and the Mark Taper
Forum; Seven Guitars and Two Trains Running at Baltimore Center Stage; Joe
Turner¹s Come and Gone at Missouri Repertory; Fences at Indiana Repertory
Theatre; and Fences for Paramount Pictures. Mr. McClinton is an Associate
Artist of Baltimore Center Stage, where his productions have included Les
Blancs and Splash Hatch on the E Going Down. His other directing credits
include Thunder Knocking on the Door at the Guthrie Theatre, Alabama
Shakespeare Festival, Baltimore Center Stage, and Dallas Theater Center, The
Coming of the Hurricane at Arena Stage, A Midsummer Night¹s Dream at La
Jolla Playhouse, and Birdie Blue at Williamstown Theatre. Mr. McClinton is
also a playwright whose drama Police Boys has been produced at Baltimore
Center Stage, Playwrights Horizons and Pittsburgh Public Theater;
productions of his other plays include Walkers off-Broadway at The Hudson
Guild Theatre, Stones and Bones at Actors Theatre of Louisville/Humana
Festival, and Who Causes the Darkness? at Penumbra. Most recently, Mr.
McClinton directed the premiere of Drowning Crow at Manhattan Theatre Club,
Roar at New Group. Marion McClinton is the recipient of two Audelco Awards,
the OBIE, NEA/TCG Pew Charitable Trust Grant, and has received Drama Desk
and Evening Standard nominations. He is a New Dramatists Alumnus, a company
member at the Penumbra Theatre, and an associate artist at Center Stage.

About Workhaus Collective:
Workhaus Collective has been the Company-in-Residence at the Playwrights¹
Center since 2006 and is made up of a diverse group of nationally recognized
playwrights based in the Twin Cities, including: Trista Baldwin, Alan Berks,
Jeannine Coulombe, Cory Hinkle, Christina Ham, Carson Kreitzer, Dominic
Orlando, Deborah Stein and Victoria Stewart. Unlike more conventional
theater, each member of the collective becomes the Artistic Director of the
company for their production, taking complete responsibility for the
artistic vision that ultimately finds its way to the stage.
www.workhauscollective.org <http://www.workhauscollective.org> .
Glyph is made possible, in part, by funds provided by the Metropolitan
Regional Arts Council from an appropriation by the Minnesota Legislature and
was developed with the support of the Jerome Foundation's Tofte Lake
Center's Emerging Artists Program.

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