Recent from talks
Two Trains Running
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Two Trains Running
Two Trains Running is a 1990 play by American playwright August Wilson, the seventh in his ten-part series The Pittsburgh Cycle. The play takes place in 1969 in the Hill District, an African-American neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It explores the social and psychological manifestations of changing attitudes toward race from the perspective of its urban Black characters. The play reached Broadway in 1992, won several awards, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
In 1969 amidst the civil rights movement, Memphis Lee's restaurant is set to be demolished by the city. While he fights to be paid a fair price for his property, his employees and regulars search for work, love, and justice as their neighborhood changes around them.
Two Trains Running was first performed by the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut on March 27, 1990, directed by Lloyd Richards with a cast including Al White, Samuel L. Jackson, Ella Joyce, Samuel E. Wright, Laurence Fishburne, Sullivan Walker, and Leonard Parker. Productions soon followed at the Huntington Theatre (Boston, Massachusetts), Seattle Repertory Theatre (Seattle, Washington), and Old Globe Theatre (San Diego, California).
The play premiered on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre on April 13, 1992. It closed there on August 30, 1992 after 160 performances and 7 previews. Directed once again by Lloyd Richards, the cast featured some of the same actors as the Yale premiere.
Seeking to escape from poverty, racism, and segregation imposed by "Jim Crow" laws in the South, more than 6 million Black Americans migrated to northern, midwestern and western industrial cities during the early and mid-20th century, a movement ending about 1970. Most of these migrants had worked in agriculture in the former Confederate slave states, and few were well acquainted with urban life. Broadly speaking, blacks who moved north could expect higher wages in industrial jobs, better educational opportunities, and greater potential for social advancement than possible in the South. They were also able to vote.
While racism in the North was arguably less violent and overt than in the South, it was nonetheless present. Though lynching was much more rare and de jure segregation did not exist in the North, negative attitudes towards blacks prevailed among many white citizens. Blacks were forced into de facto segregated neighborhoods - the newest arrivals having to take older housing. Suburban development, especially after World War II, attracted people who wanted newer housing and could afford to move. These were more white than black initially, although the black middle class also began to leave the inner city. At the same time, industrial restructuring caused the loss of many jobs in such cities as Pittsburgh. Poorer and less educated blacks were left in inner city neighborhoods, with fewer resources.
Because of the loss of working-class jobs, these overwhelmingly Black neighborhoods began to be areas of concentrated high poverty and associated crime rates. Yet these neighborhoods also simmered with their people's hopes of economic, social, and political advancement. As such, they served as fertile soil for the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power movement. Two Trains Running is set in such a neighborhood.
The play is set in 1968 at a restaurant at 1621 Wylie Avenue, in Pittsburgh's Hill District, an African-American neighborhood. In the 1940s and 1950s, the Hill District was one of the most prosperous, culturally active Black neighborhoods in the United States. Under pressure of de facto segregation, industrial restructuring and suburbanization in the 1960s, however, the neighborhood suffered a sharp economic decline.
Hub AI
Two Trains Running AI simulator
(@Two Trains Running_simulator)
Two Trains Running
Two Trains Running is a 1990 play by American playwright August Wilson, the seventh in his ten-part series The Pittsburgh Cycle. The play takes place in 1969 in the Hill District, an African-American neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It explores the social and psychological manifestations of changing attitudes toward race from the perspective of its urban Black characters. The play reached Broadway in 1992, won several awards, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
In 1969 amidst the civil rights movement, Memphis Lee's restaurant is set to be demolished by the city. While he fights to be paid a fair price for his property, his employees and regulars search for work, love, and justice as their neighborhood changes around them.
Two Trains Running was first performed by the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut on March 27, 1990, directed by Lloyd Richards with a cast including Al White, Samuel L. Jackson, Ella Joyce, Samuel E. Wright, Laurence Fishburne, Sullivan Walker, and Leonard Parker. Productions soon followed at the Huntington Theatre (Boston, Massachusetts), Seattle Repertory Theatre (Seattle, Washington), and Old Globe Theatre (San Diego, California).
The play premiered on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre on April 13, 1992. It closed there on August 30, 1992 after 160 performances and 7 previews. Directed once again by Lloyd Richards, the cast featured some of the same actors as the Yale premiere.
Seeking to escape from poverty, racism, and segregation imposed by "Jim Crow" laws in the South, more than 6 million Black Americans migrated to northern, midwestern and western industrial cities during the early and mid-20th century, a movement ending about 1970. Most of these migrants had worked in agriculture in the former Confederate slave states, and few were well acquainted with urban life. Broadly speaking, blacks who moved north could expect higher wages in industrial jobs, better educational opportunities, and greater potential for social advancement than possible in the South. They were also able to vote.
While racism in the North was arguably less violent and overt than in the South, it was nonetheless present. Though lynching was much more rare and de jure segregation did not exist in the North, negative attitudes towards blacks prevailed among many white citizens. Blacks were forced into de facto segregated neighborhoods - the newest arrivals having to take older housing. Suburban development, especially after World War II, attracted people who wanted newer housing and could afford to move. These were more white than black initially, although the black middle class also began to leave the inner city. At the same time, industrial restructuring caused the loss of many jobs in such cities as Pittsburgh. Poorer and less educated blacks were left in inner city neighborhoods, with fewer resources.
Because of the loss of working-class jobs, these overwhelmingly Black neighborhoods began to be areas of concentrated high poverty and associated crime rates. Yet these neighborhoods also simmered with their people's hopes of economic, social, and political advancement. As such, they served as fertile soil for the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power movement. Two Trains Running is set in such a neighborhood.
The play is set in 1968 at a restaurant at 1621 Wylie Avenue, in Pittsburgh's Hill District, an African-American neighborhood. In the 1940s and 1950s, the Hill District was one of the most prosperous, culturally active Black neighborhoods in the United States. Under pressure of de facto segregation, industrial restructuring and suburbanization in the 1960s, however, the neighborhood suffered a sharp economic decline.