Fri 2/27-Sun 3/29
August Wilson (1945-2005) was one of the America’s greatest playwrights, a man who made poetry out of the experiences of ordinary working people, particularly the residents of his own Black Pittsburgh community. His ten-play Pittsburgh cycle was his crowning achievement with a play for each decade of the 20th century, all but one set in his native city. Written between 1982 and 2005, all ten were performed on Broadway.
Two Trains Running, which takes place in the 1968s, premiered in 1990. (The plays were not written in chronological order.) Its story, while set in Pittsburgh, could have occurred in many northern cities as a Black restaurant owner in a changing neighborhood deals with the takeover and demolishing of his property by the city in an era when redlining and blockbusting met urban renewal and gentrification to the detriment of a Black population unsettled by the Civic Rights Movement devolving into urban riots by the end of the 60s. Like most of his plays, it looks at such epochal forces through the eyes of people impacted on the ground level. The play was nominated for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
The Beck Center will be opening its very of the play this weekend, directed by noted local director Jimmie Woody, in its Studio Theater. It will run Fridays and Saturdays @ 7:30pm and Sundays @ 2:30pm through March 29. Go here for tickets.