Lindo (an actor in Joe Turner's Come and Gone, "Get Shorty") will stage the two-hander, which starts previews April 6 at the California company's Thrust Stage and opens April 11 for a run through May 20.
"Delroy and I have been in dialogue for three years, searching for the right project to collaborate on," said Berkeley Rep artistic director Tony Taccone. "Blue Door immediately appealed to us, both in terms of its subject matter and its theatrical form."
"Over the last few years, I've admired the various creative chances I've seen Berkeley Rep take in compiling its seasons," said Lindo, "and it's been very stimulating for me to become a part of that through the process of assembling a creative team for Blue Door. It's an eloquent work, and I relish the opportunity of negotiating it and its themes."
The work centers on a mathematics professor who has decided against attending the Million Man March and then endures a sleepless night as he is visited by four generations of ancestors. Spanning the African-American experience from slavery through Black Power to the halls of academia, the work made its world premiere last year at South Coast Repertory and then played Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons.
Bougere played on Broadway as Joseph Asagai in the recent revival of A Raisin in the Sun. Other credits include The Tempest, Macbeth, A Soldier's Play and Blue/Orange. Fonteno was recently seen in Philip Kan Gotanda's Yohen (Pan Asian Repertory Theatre). His other New York credits include Distant Fires, Force Continuum, Hapgood and Stuff Happens.
The design team includes Kate Edmunds (scenic), Emilio Sosa (costume), Kathy A. Perkins (lighting) with André Pluess and Ben Sussman (sound and composition). Michael Suenkel serves as production stage manager.
Playwright Barfield — who has appeared as a solo performer — has also penned Dent, The Quick, The Houdini Act, 121 West and Pecan Tan.
Lindo made his Broadway debut in Master Harold and the Boys and then earned a Tony Award nomination for Joe Turner's Come and Gone. He is known for his work in such films as "Broken Arrow," "The Cider House Rules," "Clockers," "Crooklyn," "Domino," "Heist," "A Life Less Ordinary" and "Malcolm X. Other credits include the NBC television series "Kidnapped," the CourtTV version of The Exonerated and the HBO take on Lackawanna Blues.
Tickets to Blue Door at Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison Street in Berkeley, CA, are available by calling (510) 647-2949 or toll free at (888) 4-BRT-tix. For more information, visit www.berkeleyrep.org.
