BUY TICKETS! Two Trains Running

Dunbar Repertory Company Presents

Two Trains Running  

by August Wilson

Produced by Darrell Lawrence Willis, Sr.
Directed by Mark Antonio Henderson
Production Stage Manager Stephanie Schoppe

Dunbar Repertory Company presents a special Black History Month production of August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, the seventh in his ten-part series The Pittsburgh Cycle.

ABOUT TWO TRAINS RUNNING
Set in 1969 in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, Two Trains Running by August Wilson takes place in a struggling diner owned by Memphis Lee, who fights to get fair compensation for his building as the neighborhood faces urban renewal. The play explores 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.

CAST
Memphis – Arthur Gregory Pugh
Wolf – Damien Berger
Holloway – Jo-Leo Carney Waterton
Risa – Vivette Alston & Jole Antoinette
Hambone – Kirk Lambert + Antonio M. Johnson
West – Bellamy Shivers
Sterling – Malik Khaaliq

DISCOUNTED TICKET SPECIALS

OPENING NIGHT SPECIAL: Thurs, Feb 6 at 8 pm: ALL TICKETS $17
VALENTINE’S DAY SPECIAL: Fri, Feb 14 at 8 pm: ALL TICKETS $17
GROUP SPECIAL (10 or more): All Shows: ALL TICKETS $17* 

*Call box office to arrange group discount | 732-706-4100

SHOWTIMES
Thurs, Feb 6 at 8 pm | Fri, Feb 7 at 8 pm | Sat, Feb 8 at 3 + 8 pm
Fri, Feb 14 at 8 pm | Sat, Feb 15 at 3 + 8 pm | Sun, Feb 16 at 4 pm

ABOUT AUGUST WILSON

“No one except perhaps Eugene O’Neill or Tennessee Williams has aimed so high and achieved so much in the American theater.” – John Lahr, The New Yorker

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.”

ABOUT THE DUNBAR REPERTORY COMPANY
Known to residents of Central New Jersey as “Monmouth County’s African American Theater Company”, Dunbar Repertory Company is committed to its mission of perpetuating an appreciation of cultural diversity and celebrating African American culture through LIVE literary readings, main stage theatrical productions, education programs and services.