(MIDDLETOWN, NJ) -- The Middletown Arts Center, in conjunction with Dunbar Repertory Company, presents a special Black History Month production of August Wilson's Two Trains Running, produced by Darrell Lawrence Willis, Sr. and directed by Mark Antonio Henderson, February 6-16, 2025. Set in 1969's Pittsburgh Hill District, Two Trains Running explores racial tensions in the Civil Rights era, as argued over by regulars at a struggling diner owned by Memphis Lee, who fights to get fair compensation for his building as the neighborhood faces urban renewal.

Two Trains Running probes the lives of the diner’s patrons and staff, including Risa, the reserved waitress; Sterling, a hopeful ex-con; and Holloway, a wise elder. Each character grapples with issues of dignity, systemic racism, and personal dreams in the midst of societal change. Through their struggles, the play highlights themes of resilience, justice, and the search for identity in a transforming world. It is the seventh in the Pulitzer-prize-winning playwright’s ten-play cycle (collectively called The American Century Cycle or The Pittsburgh Cycle) on the black experience in twentieth-century America.

Dunbar Repertory Company’s production features Arthur Gregory Pugh (Memphis), Damien Berger (Wolf), Jo-Leo Carney Waterton (Holloway), Vivette Alston and Jole Antoinette (Risa), Kirk Lambert and Antonio M. Johnson (Hambone), Bellamy Shivers (West) and Malik Khaaliq (Sterling).

Performances take place Thursday, Feb 6 at 8:00pm; Friday, February 7 at 8:00pm; Saturday, February 8 at 3:00pm & 8:00pm; Friday, February 14 at 8:00pm; Saturday, February 15 at 3:00pm & 8:00pm; and Sunday, February 16 at 4:00pm. Ticket prices are $22 and are general admission. Tickets are available for purchase online or by calling the MAC Box Office at 732-706-4100.

Special discounted performances will be held on Opening Night, Thursday, February 6 and Valentine’s Day, Sunday, February 16. Tickets are $17. Group ticket sales (10 or more) are also available for $17 per ticket. The Middletown Arts Center is located at 36 Church Street in Middletown, NJ (next to the Middletown train station). Free parking is available onsite with additional free parking available in station metered lot on weekday evenings after 6:00pm and on weekends.

August Wilson (1945–2005) was a Pulitzer-prize-winning playwright known for chronicling the experiences of Black Americans during the 20th century. First, through poetry and then through plays, Wilson captured the character and experiences of the African American community, particularly the community of his native Pittsburgh. He is best known for a series of ten plays collectively called The American Century Cycle or The Pittsburgh Cycle which include, Jitney (1982), Fences (1984), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1984), Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1986), The Piano Lesson (1987) and King Hedley II (1999). Wilson received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Fences and The Piano Lesson, and earned nine Tony Award nominations, winning Best Play for 1987 for Fences. All of his plays have received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play.

"No one except perhaps Eugene O’Neill or Tennessee Williams has aimed so high and achieved so much in the American theater." – John Lahr, The New Yorker

In 2006, Wilson was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the recipient of Rockefeller and Guggenheim Fellowships, the Whiting Writers Award, the 1999 National Humanities Medal awarded by the President and numerous honorary degrees.

One of contemporary theater’s most distinguished and eloquent voices, August Wilson wrote not about historical events or the pathologies of the black community, but, as he said, about “the unique particulars of black culture…I wanted to place this culture onstage in all its richness and fullness and to demonstrate its ability to sustain us…through profound moments in our history in which the larger society has thought less of us than we have thought of ourselves.”

Known to residents of Central New Jersey as “Monmouth County’s African American Theater Company”, Dunbar Repertory Company is committed to its mission of perpetuating an appreciation of cultural diversity and celebrating African American culture through LIVE literary readings, main stage theatrical productions, education programs and services.

The Middletown Arts Center (MAC) is an award-winning, state-of-the-art facility in Middletown, New Jersey that offers performances, exhibits, classes, demonstrations and camps centering on the arts. Its convenient location across from the Middletown train station on Church Street enables easy access and its expanded MAC Annex Education Building is minutes away next to the Middletown Reformed Church. The MAC is operated by a non-profit 501c3, the Middletown Township Cultural and Arts Council dedicated to bringing quality arts programming and events to Middletown and surrounding communities. Visit middletownarts.org for more information and to join their mailing list for updates on classes, camps and activities at the Middletown Arts Center.