Two Trains Running

Two Trains Running by August Wilson first opened in 1990 at the Yale Repertory Theatre with Samuel L. Jackson as Wolf and Laurence Fishburne playing Sterling. The play premiered on Broadway in 1992, receiving four Tony nominations in 1992 including Best Play. Two Trains Running is a part of Wilson’s Century Cycle, also known as the Pittsburgh Cycle, which consists of 10 plays: one for each decade of the 20th century, each depicting the changing experience of living as a Black person in America. Nine of the ten plays are set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the 10th, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1982), takes place in Chicago in 1927. Wilson did not write the plays in chronological order, first composing Jitney (set in 1979) in 1982 and finishing the last play, Radio Golf (set in 1997) just before his death in 2005. Two Trains Running, set in 1969, portrays the 1960s. It takes place at the peak of the Black Power movement and considers what the ethos and ideals of the movement meant to the everyday urban Black person who was living in poverty, struggling to survive, and dreaming about success.