August Wilson's TWO TRAINS RUNNING to be Presented at The Middletown Arts Center

The Middletown Arts Center will present a special Black History Month production of August Wilson's Two Trains Running, produced by Darrell Lawrence Willis, Sr. and directed by Mark Antonio Henderson, February 6 -16, 2025. Set in 1969's Pittsburgh Hill District, Two Trains Running explores racial tensions in the Civil Rights era, as argued over by regulars at a struggling diner owned by Memphis Lee, who fights to get fair compensation for his building as the neighborhood faces urban renewal.

SHOW DATES FOR TWO TRAINS RUNNING
Thurs, Feb 6 at 8 p.m. | Fri, Feb 7 at 8 p.m. | Sat, Feb 8 at 3 + 8 p.m.
Fri, Feb 14 at 8 p.m. | Sat, Feb 15 at 3 + 8 p.m. | Sun, Feb 16 at 4 p.m.

ABOUT TWO TRAINS RUNNING

Two Trains Running probes the lives of the diner's patrons and staff, including Risa, the reserved waitress; Sterling, a hopeful ex-con; and Holloway, a wise elder. Each character grapples with issues of dignity, systemic racism, and personal dreams in the midst of societal change. Through their struggles, the play highlights themes of resilience, justice, and the search for identity in a transforming world. It is the seventh in the Pulitzer-prize-winning playwright's ten-play cycle (collectively called The American Century Cycle or The Pittsburgh Cycle) on the black experience in twentieth-century America.

Dunbar Repertory Company's production features Arthur Gregory Pugh (Memphis), Damien Berger (Wolf), Jo-Leo Carney Waterton (Holloway), Vivette Alston and Jole Antoinette (Risa), Kirk Lambert and Antonio M. Johnson (Hambone), Bellamy Shivers (West) and Malik Khaaliq (Sterling).

ABOUT August Wilson

August Wilson (1945 - 2005) was a Pulitzer-prize-winning playwright known for chronicling the experiences of Black Americans during the 20th century. First, through poetry and then through plays, Wilson captured the character and experiences of the African American community, particularly the community of his native Pittsburgh. He is best known for a series of ten plays collectively called The American Century Cycle or The Pittsburgh Cycle which include, Jitney (1982), Fences (1984), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1986), The Piano Lesson (1987) and King Hedley II (1999). Wilson received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Fences and The Piano Lesson, and earned nine Tony Award nominations, winning Best Play for 1987 for Fences. All of his plays have received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play.

In 2006, Wilson was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the recipient of Rockefeller and Guggenheim Fellowships, the Whiting Writers Award, the 1999 National Humanities Medal awarded by the President and numerous honorary degrees.

One of contemporary theater's most distinguished and eloquent voices, August Wilson wrote not about historical events or the pathologies of the black community, but, as he said, about "the unique particulars of black culture...I wanted to place this culture onstage in all its richness and fullness and to demonstrate its ability to sustain us...through profound moments in our history in which the larger society has thought less of us than we have thought of ourselves."

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