About the Play
"Two Trains Running…is a good ride, funny, painful, and radiantly alive.” — Talking Broadway/Nominated for 1992 Tony Award and winner American Theatre Critic’s award Best Play."

The place and time is America in the 1960s. Feel the winds of change. ‘Two Trains’, Wilson’s first post civil rights play, interweaves the lives and hopes of people in a small diner nesting their dreams. Set against the symbolic backdrop of trains that brought Southerners North in pursuit of the American dream, events unfold in gripping fashion and the forlorn cry of a homeless man, “I want my ham!” foreshadows retribution and ‘chickens coming home to roost.” The Ensemble welcomes Eileen J. Morris in her return to direct this encore staging of Wilson’s engrossing treatise of the complexity of social change and people who challenge fate, capitalism, and even history, to take destiny into their own hands.

About the Playwright
August Wilson, born Frederick August Kittel in 1945, began as a poet. After his first play, "Jitney," was accepted for a workshop production in 1982 at the prestigious O’Neill Theatre Center’s National Playwright’s Conference, he pursued playwriting. His works have been on Broadway and adapted for television. Wilson describes himself as a “cultural nationalist” influenced by '60s activists and the artistry of blues music and even visual artists. He grew up poor in a family of five siblings, but felt his parents “shielded us from the indignities they suffered. My generation of blacks knew very little about the past of our parents.” He has brilliantly undertaken to illuminate that past with a series of plays, each set in a different decade of African American history. These plays have garnered numerous awards and unparalleled recognition including two Pulitzer’s, and Tony Awards. The Ensemble continues a proud tradition of presenting the genius of one of the most celebrated playwrights of the 20th century.

Download Playbill
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