WENDELL PIERCE* (Vladimir) was born and raised in New Orleans. He has appeared at the Classical Theatre of Harlem as Vladimir in Waiting for Godot and as Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard.  He has also appeared on Broadway in The Piano Lesson, Serious Money, and The Boys of Winter. Other NY theater credits include Tartuffe, Tis' Pity She's a Whore, Cymbeline, and Two Gentlemen of Verona at NYSF; The Good Times Are Killing Me at Second Stage; and Fences at Pasadena Playhouse with Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett. Internationally, he appeared in The Oedipus Plays at the Athens Festival and Tradition for BBC Radio. TV: The Wire, Law and Order: Trial by Jury, Judging Amy, Girlfriends, My Wife and Kids, Third Watch, Life Support (Emmy Nomination), and The Gregory Hines Show. Film: Ray, Land Of Plenty (Venice Film Festival), The Fighting Temptations, 24 Hour Woman, It Could Happen to You, Waiting To Exhale, Malcolm X, and Hackers. As a producer, his credits include: Radio Golf (Broadway, Tony Nomination); Jitney (NY Premier); Biro (World Premier) at The Uganda National Theater, Africa; The Date (HBO); From My Hometown (off-Broadway), and the feature film Dirty Laundry.

J KYLE MANZAY* (Estragon) is a native of Dallas, TX. He began his training at Howard University where he received a BFA in Theater. Upon graduation J Kyle attended the NYU Graduate Acting Program where he received his MFA in acting.  In the summer of 2000, J Kyle became a member of the Classical Theater of Harlem where he acted in such plays as Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet (the title role), King Lear (AUDELCO Nomination Best Supporting Actor), The Blacks: A Clown Show (Obie Award for Outstanding Performance), Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death (AUDELCO Nomination for Best Actor in a Musical) and Waiting for Godot (AUDELCO Nomination for Best Ensemble). He has also worked Off-Broadway at The Cherry Lane Theater, Classic Stage Company, and New York Theater Workshop. J Kyle Manzay has been seen on Law & Order -SVU, CSI - NY, and just recently completed the pilot Honky Sausages for Comedy Central. He has been seen in the films Brother to Brother, Little Manhattan (Twentieth Century Fox), Singe Hills, and recently played opposite Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe in American Gangster (Universal Pictures). 

T. RYDER SMITH* (Pozzo) Recent work includes Sarah Ruhl's epic Passion Play, at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, and, back in his native NYC, Israel Horowitz' 3-actor/50-role Lebensraum, for which Smith shared a 2007 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Cast; Lear De Bessonet's transFigures, at the Woman's Project; and Marat/Sade, as the Marquis de Sade, with the Classical Theatre of Harlem, directed by Chris McElroen. Other NYC credits include world-premiere pieces with Richard Foreman (The Gods Are Pounding My Head and King Cowboy Rufus Rules the Universe, at the Ontological), David Greenspan (She Stoops to Comedy, at Playwrights Horizons); Anne Washburn (Apparition, I Have Loved Strangers), and Glen Berger (The Wooden Breeks; Underneath the Lintel, for which T. received a Drama Desk nomination as Outstanding Solo Performer). T.V. and film appearances include playing “The Trickster” in the cult film Brainscan; the 2007 experimental feature Horrible Child; Law and Order: Conviction, and several voices on the animated series The Venture Brothers. Smith was profiled in the September 2006 issue of American Theatre magazine.

MARK MCLAUGHLIN (Lucky) has jobbed around the New Orleans theater scene for the past thirty years.  Along the way, he’s had the good fortune to participate in the fledgling enterprises of the Contemporary Arts Center, The Diversity Players, True Brew Theater, EtherEdge, Swine Palace, The Dog and Pony Theatre Company, Jubilee Fish Theater, Tulane Summer Shakespeare, and the Red Noses.  He is an amateur gardener and stargazer.  His performance is dedicated to G.M.

TONY FELIX (Boy) was born in New Orleans in 1995. He had his first acting debut in the production Grown Ups at Anthony Bean Theater at the age of 6. He has recently been in the hip-hop production 504 and was nominated for best performance for child actor in the Big Easy Awards for his role in Lil Bit. He recently appeared on the television series K-Ville. In addition to working on this production, he is currently working on How Santa Got his Groove Back premiering in December. 

MICHAEL PEPP (Boy) was born in New Orleans in 1990. His acting debut was at the age of 13 in a New Orleans acting competition called the “Paul Roberson project’’ for which he wrote and performed his own monologue and won 3rd place. He has since performed in “Dream Girls” and “Once On This Island.” Pepp is a currently a member of Jomajo Performing Arts Company, directed by Leo Jones. He is a junior at John McDonogh Senior High School and a drama 1 student at NOCCA Riverfront.

CHRISTOPHER MCELROEN (Director) is the Co-Founder of the Classical Theatre of Harlem where he has helped produce thirty productions in the past seven years yielding 12 AUDELCO Awards, 5 OBIE Awards, 2 Lucille Lortel Awards, 1 Drama Desk Award and CTH being named "1 of 8 theatres in America to Watch" by the Drama League. As a director, he has helmed several production at CTH including Waiting for Godot with Wendell Pierce and J Kyle Manzay, The Cherry Orchard with Earle Hyman, The Blacks: A Clown Show (4 2003 OBIE Awards and named one of the best Off-Broadway productions of the 2003 season by The New York Times) and the AUDELCO nominated productions of Mother Courage, The Crazy Locomotive and Rhinoceros.   He recently directed the international tour of Sekou Sundiata's 51st (dream) State, which premiered at The Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival.

PAUL CHAN (Artistic Director) was born in Hong Kong in 1973. Chan first studied video and digital arts at the Art Institute of Chicago School in 1996 before continuing on to Bard College where he received his MFA in new media. For the past seven years Chan has exhibited his politically and socially charged work on the international scale including exhibitions at The Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam); UCLA Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, CA); Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston, MA) and The Serpentine Gallery (London). His work has also been part of various group shows including Paper Trail: A Decade in Acquisitions (Walker Art Center, Minneapolis); Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation (National Art Museum of China, Beijing; Shanghai); Down By Law (Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York). Chan has also hosted a number of lectures and presentations relevant to his work and artistic practice, such as “The Art of Disarmament: Paul Chan in conversation with Kathy Kelly” (New York Public Library). A solo exhibition of Chan’s work will open at the New Museum in New York City in April 2008.

JEFFREY GLASER* (Stage Manager) Stage Manager credits include Letters to Sala (New York Public Library) and By The Sea (American Theater of Actors).  Acting credits include Marat/Sade (Classical Theatre of Harlem), Three Sisters (Lincoln Center), and Mt. Analouge (Rubin Museum).  Directing credits include Moral Values: Or Me No Likey the Homo Touch-Touch by Ian McWethy (Village Theater), Twinicide 2+2=2 by Lindsay Newitter (West End Theater); Roscoe’s Little Theatre By Julianne Homokay (American Theater of Actors); Hamlet (Fordham University) and Michael Swift’s Texas Law Men (37 Arts). Jeffrey would like to thank the Gulf Coast, South Louisiana, and New Orleans.

KIMBERLY GLENNON (Costume Designer) received a 2003 OBIE Award and an American Theatre Wing Design Award nomination for her costume design of CTH's production of The Blacks: A Clown Show. Additional credits include: Sixteen Wounded (Cherry Lane); Growing up a Slave (American Place Theatre); As You Like It (Juilliard); 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (University of Rochester). She received a 2005 AUDELCO Award for Melvin Van Peebles' Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death and a 2007 American Theatre Wing Design Award for Marat/Sade, both at the Classical Theatre of Harlem.

* Member of Actors' Equity Association