Cover

About the Author

A PLUME BOOK

TWO TRAINS RUNNING

AUGUST WILSON is one of America’s leading playwrights, whose work has been acclaimed as among the finest of the American theater. His first play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for best new play. His second play, Fences, won numerous awards, including the Tony Award, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. His third play, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, also was best play of the year by the New York Drama Critics’ Circle. The Piano Lesson (1990) won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. August Wilson passed away in 2005.

Praise for TWO TRAINS RUNNING

Praise for Two Trains Running

WINNER OF THE NEW YORK DRAMA CRITICS’ CIRCLE BEST PLAY AWARD

“THE OUTSTANDING AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHT OF THE PAST DECADE . . .  his language is golden: rich in humor and poetry and redolent of a colorful vernacular.”

—Wall Street Journal

“Has an unassailable authenticity . . .  [Wilson] has packed a lot of life and a lot of humor into Memphis Lee’s Restaurant. . . . By the end, a small world has been utterly transformed.”

—Variety

“These characters are fully imagined—they live . . .  reeling out stories about their past, their angers, their dreams.”

—Washington Post

“Wilson’s most adventurous and honest attempt to reveal the intimate nature of history . . .  glorious storytelling . . .  touching and often funny . . .  a penetrating revelation of a world hidden from view.”

—Frank Rich, New York Times

Dedication

This one’s for Judy

If the train don’t hurry
there’s gonna be some walking done.

Traditional

Two Trains Running opened on March 27, 1990, at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, Lloyd Richards, Artistic Director, Benjamin Mordecai, Managing Director, with the following cast:

Director: Lloyd Richards

Set Design: Tony Fanning

Costume Design: Chrisi Karvonides

Lighting Design: Geoff Korf

Sound Design: Ann Johnson

Stage Manager: Liz Dreyer

Production Dramaturg: Lisa A. Wilde

Casting: Meg Simon

Two Trains Running opened on April 13, 1992, at the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway in New York City, with the following cast:

Director: Lloyd Richards

Set Design: Tony Fanning

Costume Design: Chrisi Karvonides

Light Design: Geoff Korf

Production Stage Manager: Karen Carpenter

Stage Manager: Fred Seagraves

Executive Producer: Benjamin Mordecai

Casting: Meg Simon

The Setting

It is Pittsburgh, 1969. The action of the play takes place in a restaurant across the street from West’s Funeral Home and Lutz’s Meat Market. It is a small restaurant with four stools, a counter, and three booths lined against one wall. The menu is printed on a blackboard behind the counter.

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

(The lights come up on the restaurant. The menu reads “Beans w/corn muffins 65 cents

Chicken w/2 sides $2.45