Photo Flash: Meet the Cast of Berkeley Rep's TRIBES, Beg. Tonight

Berkeley Repertory Theatre continues the second half of its season with Tribes, a sophisticated and moving family drama by celebrated British playwright Nina Raine. Her profound and powerful new play became an award-winning hit in London and New York. Now renowned director Jonathan Moscone brings it to Berkeley Rep this April for its Bay Area premiere. Tribes follows Billy, a young man who was born deaf into a loquacious and highly opinionated academic family who raised him to lip-read and integrate into the hearing world. When he meets Sylvia - raised by Deaf parents and going deaf herself - Billy decides it's time to speak on his own terms and to be heard. Playing out in words, sign language, and sometimes mesmerizing silence, this penetrating drama examines familial love, notions of belonging, and the intersections of communication. Tribes start previews tonight, April 11, opens on April 16, and closes on Sunday, May 11, 2014. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast below!

Tribes had its world premiere in 2010 at the Royal Court Theatre and its North American premiere off- Broadway at the Barrow Street Theatre in 2012, where it won the 2012 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play. It has since played throughout the country, sweeping critics and audiences off their feet.

Playwright Nina Raine began her career as a trainee director at the Royal Court Theatre after graduating from Oxford. She dramaturged and directed the hard-hitting verbatim play Unprotected at the Liverpool Everyman, for which she won both the TMA Best Director Award and the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award for an Outstanding Production on a Human Rights Theme. Unprotected was also nominated as Best Regional Production by Whatsonstage.com. Rabbit is Raine's first play, for which she won London's Evening Standard Award 2006 for Most Promising Playwright, the Critics' Circle Award 2006 for Most Promising Playwright, and was nominated as Best London Newcomer by Whatsonstage.com. The play was also shortlisted for the Verity Bargate Award 2004. It premiered at the Old Red Lion Theatre in 2006 and after a sell-out run transferred to the Trafalgar Studios in London's West End, followed by a production for Brits off- Broadway in New York, in 2007. Raine's second play, Tiger Country, was shortlisted for the Sphinx Theatre Brave New Roles Award, and is under commission at the Royal Court Theatre.

Director Jonathan Moscone is in his 14th season as artistic director of California Shakespeare Theater, where he most recently directed American Night: The Ballad of Juan José and where he will direct Shaw's Pygmalion for the 2014 season. His other credits include the world premiere of Ghost Light, which he co-created and developed with playwright Tony Taccone for Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Berkeley Rep. In addition, he directed Bruce Norris' Clybourne Park for American Conservatory Theater prior to its winning the Pulitzer Prize. For Cal Shakes, Moscone has directed the world-premiere adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven by Octavio Solis (recipient of the inaugural NEA New Play Development Award), The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Candida, Twelfth Night, Happy Days, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, and The Seagull. He is the first recipient of the Zelda Fichandler Award, given by the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation for "transforming the American theatre through his unique and creative work." His regional credits include productions at Intersection for the Arts, theHuntington Theatre Company, Alley Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Goodspeed Musicals, Dallas Theater Center, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Intiman Theatre, and Magic Theatre, among others. Moscone currently serves as a board member of Theatre Communications Group.

Tribes features an ensemble of six accomplished actors, many of whom are making their Berkeley Rep debut: Anita Carey (Beth); James Caverly (Billy); Dan Clegg (Daniel); Nell Geisslinger (Sylvia); Elizabeth Morton (Ruth); and Paul Whitworth (Christopher).

The creative team for Tribes includes Todd Rosenthal (scenic designer), Meg Neville (costume designer), Christopher Akerlind (lighting designer), Jake Rodriguez (sound designer), and Joan Osato (video designer). The stage manager for the production of Tribes is Karen Szpaller. Tribes is made possible by lead producer Helen and John Meyer and executive producer Marjorie Randolph, and by production co-sponsor Bank of the West.

Photos courtesy of kevinberne.com.

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