Signature Stories Vol. 15 | Page 22

PUZZL EP I ECES Test your knowledge of these plays from Signature’s past! 1. 2. 4. 5. 6. 7. 3. 1. Actor Deidre O’Connell was featured in this María Irene Fornés play, which was presented in 1999 alongside Fornés’ Drowning. 2. In 1997, Ethan Hawke was the final actor to perform in this Sam Shepard play at Signature, which consisted of a single twenty-minute monologue. 3. Future Residency Five playwright Regina Taylor curated and performed in this evening of one-act plays, a tribute to Adrienne Kennedy, during the 2000-01 Season. 4. This Charles Mee play was a colorful ode to one of New York’s boroughs during the 2007-08 Season. 5. Adapted from Pierre Corneille’s play of a similar title, this Tony Kushner play featured Lois Smith in a mystical role. 6. Bruce Norris appeared in Signature’s 1998 production of this John Guare play with a rhyming title. 7. Playwright Horton Foote famously went on stage at the last minute to cover a small role in this play during Signature’s All Premiere Season in 2000. 8. During the 2006-07 Season celebrating August Wilson, Ruben Santiago-Hudson made his Signature directorial debut with this play set in the 1940s. 9. During Signature’s third season, Founding Artistic Director James Houghton and playwright Edward Albee cast a young Edward Norton in this play. Bring your completed puzzle to the Signature Café & Bar and receive a free Signature cocktail! 8. 26 2121 9. Valid one per person, for one-time use only through 2016. Artwork by Constanza Romero for August Wilson’s Seven Guitars, Two Trains Running and King Hedley II. With 2016 already at full speed, it is hard for me to believe that the August Wilson season at Signature Theatre happened ten years ago! I had lost August the year before – liver cancer took him in the course of four months – and suddenly I became the executor of this most important estate. Jim Houghton and I decided we would go ahead and complete the vision he and August had for his plays to be presented at Signature. So we launched the historic three productions that I revisit in my mind often and fondly. Knowing that I had done the artwork for Broadway’s Two Trains Running and Seven Guitars, Jim asked me to take some of the other ideas I had tucked away and execute the artwork for Signature’s productions. For Seven Guitars, I used an image that has always haunted me in the play: Vera seeing Floyd being taken up to the sky by men in suits, who she and Canewell consider to be angels. That image goes to the core of many of August’s plays. He often asks us to judge the actions of his characters – their struggle to fulfill their dreams, to do the best they can for the people they love – by the context of their time and place. The artwork for Two Trains Running is also an image of finality: Hambone stands in glory, larger than life, finally clutching the ham, the fair payment for his hard work that has eluded him all throughout his life. For King Hedley II, I continued with the same theme of creating an image directly after the final word of the play has been spoken. I illustrated the resurrection of Aunt Ester in the form of a cat. She embodies the history of the African presence in America, which then could return to illuminate the way to a brand new generation in the 21st century, the topic of Radio Golf, August’s final play in the American Century Cycle. – CONSTANZA ROMERO