Mark Clayton Southers kicked off opening night of Two Trains Running by announcing that everyone present was now a part of history: Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company was about complete a second round of all 10 plays in the August Wilson American Century Cycle. As history-making goes, Saturday was a night of two plays running in the Hill District, where Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson spent his formative years, and where he set nine of his plays, one in each decade of the 20th century, about the Black American experience. Two Trains Running, representing the late 1960s, a time when the Civil Rights Movements and Black Power were in full swing, is at Madison Arts Center in the Upper Hill, through August 30, 2025. Fences, set in 1957, can be seen outdoors in the Lower Hill, at the August Wilson House, through September 6, 2025.
Kevin Brown
VIDEO CHAT: Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company Launches 3-Play August Wilson Experience in Hill District
VIDEO: onStage Pittsburgh’s Sharon Eberson chats with the directors of the 3-play August Wilson American Century Cycle Experience – Terrence Spivey, Ashley Southers and Mark Clayton Southers – on the set of ‘Two Trains Running,’ at Madison Art Center, which will also present ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ in a new cabaret space. Pittsburgh Playwrights’ annual outdoor production at the August Wilson House is the Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘Fences.’
Review: New Horizon Premiere Biomusical Pays Overdue Homage to Willie Dixon
By SHARON EBERSON Willie Dixon stands as tall in forging the foundation of American popular music as a certain “ten-dollar Founding Father” did in paving the foundation of our country. But unlike that other guy, Dixon comes with a ready-made… Read More ›
Review: Premiere of Mark Clayton Southers’ ‘The Bluegrass Mile’ at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Educates and Entertains
This drama about Black horse jockeys in the late 1800s is the latest installment in Southers’ 19th Century Collection of plays. By MAC HOOVER There is a line in the play The Bluegrass Mile written by Mark Clayton Southers that is haunting this writer…. Read More ›
Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Caps off its Bustling 20th Season with the World Premiere of ‘The Bluegrass Mile’
The play is one of the final installments of Mark Clayton Southers’ 19th-century play cycle. By JAMES PAUL* (This story has been updated by the writer.) Mark Clayton Southers, the founder and Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, embarked on… Read More ›
REVIEW: Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Presents August Wilson’s ‘Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’
By BOB HOOVER Defeated, angry Black men are at the center of numerous August Wilson plays. Still, none is angrier and more dangerous than Herald Loomis in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, now playing at the August Wilson House, 1727 Bedford Ave.,… Read More ›
Pittsburgh Playwright Theatre’s “Gem of the Ocean” Triumphs
A shaky sound system. Neighborhood kids shouting. Three quick explosions of firecrackers. Honking of car horns. Emergency sirens. A noisy low-flying helicopter. It was opening night and the show must go on – and so it did with power and… Read More ›
