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Two Trains Running by August Wilson Directed by Nancy Medina

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Two Trains Running by August Wilson Directed by Nancy Medina An English Touring Theatre and Royal & Derngate, Northampton co-production Two Trains Running By August Wilson Directed by Nancy Medina #TwoTrainsRunning Tuesday 15 - Saturday 19 October 2019 We are delighted to welcome you to this performance of August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, our co-production with Royal & Derngate, Northampton. One of the great 20th century American playwrights, August Wilson’s writing is monumental, beautiful and visionary. Set in 1969 Pittsburgh, Two Trains Running showcases Wilson’s genius in portraying life in all its complexities. Its themes of gentrification, the poverty trap and police tensions with the black community all still resonate strongly today. But more than anything his writing is full of optimism and hope, full of rich voices and characters with whom it is a privilege to spend time with. We thank Nancy Medina and the magnificent cast that she has assembled for breathing life into these characters, our partners at Royal & Derngate, Northampton and the Royal Theatrical Support Trust for helping to bring this story to the stage. You can keep up to date with the production on tour @ETTtweet #TwoTrainsRunning or by signing up to our mailing list at ett.org.uk. We hope you enjoy the show. Richard & Lizzie Richard Twyman Lizzie Vogler Artistic Director Executive Producer English Touring Theatre English Touring Theatre Two Trains Running is an English Touring Theatre and Royal & Derngate, Northampton co-production. The production opens at Royal & Derngate, Northampton (31 Aug – 14 Sep) before touring to Nuffield Theatre, Southampton (17 – 21 Sep), Oxford Playhouse (24 – 28 Sep), Cast, Doncaster (1 – 5 Oct), New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich (8 – 12 Oct), Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford (15 – 19 Oct) and Derby Theatre (22 – 26 Oct). Nancy Medina, Director /English Touring Theatre @ETTtweet /englishtouringtheatre #TwoTrainsRunning 3 4 Anita-Joy Uwajeh (Risa) Michael Salami (Sterling Johnson) 5 The Lower Hill District and others like it were A series of protest groups was set up to halt early targets for these enterprising planners. the renewal programme, which seemed to be The first wrecking ball was swung in 1950 and annihilating much of Pittsburgh’s historical and soon after, when the city’s dignitaries decided cultural heritage in favour of ultra-Modernist they deserved a new civic arena, The Hill was design and urban planning. One group of Pittsburgh selected. It had certainly seen better days architects complained of “our city being defaced and was suffering from overcrowding and by thoughtless buildings and projects”, adding: widespread disease, but the regeneration “The inane things that have all but ruined this A Cautionary Tale programme was to prove as brutal as it was place have been unchallenged much too long.” comprehensive. Looking back now on the 1960s renewal, local Through a policy known as eminent domain reporter Beth Dunlop argues: “The problem was, “It seemed like a perfect plan. It just didn’t work – roughly equivalent to our own compulsory it didn’t work because really basic notions of purchase orders – more than 1,200 black families how human beings perceive and use space were the way we planned. I feel, in a measure, guilty.” were forced out of their homes with no relocation completely misapprehended.” Dave Craig, Pittsburgh city solicitor in the 1960s expenses and a chaotic implementation plan. The $22 million arena was completed in 1961 but only And then, on April 4, 1968, came the assassination one other building in the promised cultural centre of Martin Luther King. In cities across the United States, racial unrest came to a head. Pittsburgh The time and location for August Wilson’s lit during the day. Sewage was a major problem, was ever built. Ironically, the Civic Arena itself was endured a week of rioting, looting and violence play Two Trains Running are no accident. The often running freely into open rivers. Outside demolished in 2012. that damaged black areas economically and Lower Hill District of Pittsburgh in 1969 was observers were less than kind, with the Chicago heightened tensions with the police. Museum reeling from a double whammy of blows: the Tribune newspaper arguing that Pittsburgh wasn’t Pittsburgh had certainly seen curator Emily Ruby describes 1968 as “the year devastating legacy of two decades of so-called a major city, and the Wall Street Journal rating it a better days and was suffering that rocked Pittsburgh”, concluding: “The riots and urban renewal and the race riots that had “Class D” city. struggles of 1968 left the city more racially divided erupted across America the previous year. from overcrowding and However, under a succession of transformative widespread disease, but the than at the start, but also more aware of the It was not always thus: The Hill – or ‘Little civic leaders, starting with Mayor David L problems that it faced moving forward.” Harlem’ as it was known from the 1930s to the Lawrence in 1945, the city began a new era of regeneration programme was In the decades since, the city – and The Hill in 50s – was one of the most culturally vibrant urban development that would shape its history to prove as brutal as it was particular – have been the subject of countless African-American neighbourhoods in the for the rest of the century and beyond. Backed comprehensive. attempts to rectify the damage done by what was whole of the United States. It had a jazz scene and steered by local financier Richard K Mellon, known as the Renaissance I project. Unfortunately, frequented by the likes of John Coltrane and Pittsburgh set up the Urban Redevelopment Meanwhile, The Hill’s population crashed from even today, The Hill is regarded as a place to Dizzy Gillespie, the first black-owned and built Authority, a body still in existence today, whose 17,000 in 1950 to fewer than 2,500 in 1990. be avoided by many Pittsburghers. Fresh plans baseball park, and one of the country’s leading aims were to change the city for the better What had been one of the most integrated are floated from time to time but, as one local clubs in the shape of The Crawford Grill. through the new principles of urban planning communities in America was destroyed, its commentator remarked: “One can’t blame its and community involvement. residents dispersed to other, more racially But Pittsburgh, like many other cities across long-suffering residents for being sceptical of segregated areas for the sake of a project America’s manufacturing ‘Rust Belt’, was As the URA’s website describes its own history: such things.” that would be one of the most controversial struggling in the aftermath of the Second World “It is a story of people. It is a story of partnership development schemes in the country. Michael Davies War. Its industrial heritage, although bringing in and leadership. Most of all, it is a story of building © John Good plenty of money, also created a smog that was a better Pittsburgh.” sometimes so bad that the streetlamps were 6 7 8 Leon Herbert (Holloway) Ray Emmet Brown (Wolf) 9 A note from Constanza Romero 2 August 2019, Seattle Washington I just returned from Pittsburgh where Netflix is make a difference in a world that does not offer I am equally grateful to director Nancy Medina adapting and filming my late husband, August many options to a young black man. By 1969 the for choosing this play after winning the 2018 RTST Wilson’s play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. For wind of change is felt as The Civil Rights era of the Sir Peter Hall Director Award. She and I had a this film I am serving as one of the Executive ’50s and early ’60s makes way to The Black Power wonderful conversation on the phone and I know Producers, while Denzel Washington is the lead movement. At this important moment in history, that she has passion for my husband’s work, as well Producer. Mr Washington also directed and August wholeheartedly embraced this movement’s as a solid grasp on the characters in the play. I am starred in August’s widely acclaimed film Fences call for self-sufficiency, and the development of very much looking forward to seeing the result of in 2016. Because film and television have such political and cultural institutions that served the hers and her collaborator’s efforts. a vast audience, there is no doubt that August’s needs of African Americans. It is no wonder that the international presence is growing exponentially forward, to this play reads: To all the artists and theater staff at Royal & each year, especially as Netflix operates in about Derngate, Northampton, and the theaters that 190 countries! “If the train don’t hurry there’s gonna be some make up the tour, I send you my greetings and walking done.”** my heartfelt gratitude for your craft, for your But August was first and foremost an artist of exploration and investment in August Wilson’s Two the spoken word, more precisely the theater. His The theme of self-determination runs all through Trains Running. master storytelling style with its unique rhythm, the play, from Memphis’ war cry to the city of poetry and musicality is a proud homage to his Pittsburgh that they must “meet his price” for the Constanza Romero African American ancestors. As a theater designer, sale of his restaurant, to Hambone’s not allowing Executor August Wilson Estate and frequent collaborator with August on his plays the white butcher, Lutz to determine the worth of in The American Century Cycle*, I feel, as August his labor. Even Death is embodied by a black man, did, that there is no other more engaging, more West, with his own set of rules and relationship immediate way to have a conversation about the with the community.
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