50 | theburg | 02.16
W
hen Open Stage of Harrisburg
debuts its production of August
Wilson's "Two Trains Running" on
Feb. 5, it will mark the professional
theater's sixth production of the acclaimed
play wright's 10-play series (also known as the
"Century Cycle").
Open Stage began telling the stories and struggles
of African Americans in the early '90s, soon after its
founding. With "Two Trains Running," the theater
continues a 24-year legacy of allowing African-
American actors to tell stories of the African-
American experience as written by African-
American playwrights.
In addition to Wilson's "Century Cycle," other
notable productions by the theater have included
"Crowns," "'Master Harold'...and the Boys" and the
indelible "A Raisin in the Sun."
Yet, in presenting the works of perhaps the greatest
playwright in the African-American dramaturgical
diaspora and arguably its most revered (Wilson won
a Pulitzer Prize for "Fences" and "The Piano
Lesson"), Open Stage has chosen to raise the stakes
in the conversation about what it means to be black
in America.
"Two Trains Running" is at the apex of this
conversation chronicling a decade, the 1960s, which
regressed from great American hope to social, racial
" ere are always only two trains running. ere is life and there is
death. Each of us rides them both."
–Playwright August Wilson (1945–2005)
StorieS
of a
PeoPle
