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October 25, 2006
Signature Theatre Company
EXTENDS
AUGUST WILSON'S
TWO TRAINS RUNNING
TWO TRAINS RUNNING Will Now Run Through Sunday, January 7
Tickets for the Extension Week Are $55
Signature Theatre Company (James Houghton, Founding Artistic Director; Kathryn M. Lipuma, Executive Director) announced that it would extend August Wilson's TWO TRAINS RUNNING one additional week since the originally scheduled run is already sold out. Directed by Lou Bellamy, TWO TRAINS RUNNING will begin previews on Tuesday, November 7 with an official press opening on Sunday, December 3. Performances will now play through Sunday, January 7 at Signature Theatre Company's Peter Norton Space (555 W. 42nd St.).
The $15 ticket initiative, made possible by the lead sponsorship of Time Warner Inc., only applies to the originally scheduled run, November 7-December 30. Tickets for the extension week will be $55 (regular price).
The $15 ticket initiative will continue with the final play in the August Wilson series, King Hedley II, running February 20-April 15. Target is a proud sponsor of The August Wilson Series.
In 1969 Pittsburgh, the regulars at a popular local diner grind out an existence against the backdrop of a turbulent world and rapidly changing city. Memphis Lee looks to prevent the demolition of his restaurant in the face of a municipal project while across the street, Mr. West, the local funeral director, has more business than he can handle. Faced with racial inequality, a depressed economy and the threat of violence, the local residents fight to hang on to their solidarity and sense of community.
The cast for TWO TRAINS RUNNING features Leon Addison Brown (Broadway: On The Waterfront, Prelude to a Kiss), Chad L. Coleman (Force Continuum/Atlantic Theatre Company; North Atlantic/Wooster Group), Frankie Faison ("The Wire," The Thomas Crown Affair), Arthur French (Kinsey, Music of the Heart), Ron Cephas Jones (Satellites/Public Theatre; The Wooden Breeks/MCC), January LaVoy (Joy/Actors' Playhouse; The Piano Lesson/Pittsburgh Public) and Ed Wheeler (Zooman and The Sign/Second Stage; East Texas Hot Links/Public Theatre).
TWO TRAINS RUNNING has scenic design by Derek McLane; costumes by Mathew J. Lefebvre; lights by Robert Wierzel; and sound by Brett R. Jarvis.
AUGUST WILSON (April 27, 1945 - October 2, 2005). August Wilson authored Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Fences, Two Trains Running, Jitney, King Hedley II, and Radio Golf. These works explore the heritage and experience of African Americans, decade-by-decade, over the course of the twentieth century. Mr. Wilson's plays have been produced at regional theatres across the country and all over the world, as well as on Broadway. In 2003, Mr. Wilson made his professional stage debut in his one-man show, How I Learned What I Learned. Mr. Wilson's works garnered many awards, including Pulitzer Prizes for Fences (1987); and for The Piano Lesson (1990); a Tony Award for Fences; Great Britain's Olivier Award for Jitney; as well as seven New York Drama Critics Circle Awards for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Fences, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson, Two Trains Running, Seven Guitars, and Jitney. Additionally, the cast recording of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom received a 1985 Grammy Award, and Mr. Wilson received a 1995 Emmy Award nomination for his screenplay adaptation of The Piano Lesson. Mr. Wilson's early works included the one-act plays: The Janitor, Recycle, The Coldest Day of the Year, Malcolm X, The Homecoming and the musical satire Black Bart and the Sacred Hills.
Mr. Wilson received many fellowships and awards, including Rockefeller and Guggenheim Fellowships in Playwriting, the Whiting Writers Award, 2003 Heinz Award, was awarded a 1999 National Humanities Medal by the President of the United States, and received numerous honorary degrees from colleges and universities, as well as the only high school diploma ever issued by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. He was an alumnus of New Dramatists, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a 1995 inductee into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and on October 16, 2005 Broadway named the theatre located at 245 West 52nd Street "The August Wilson Theatre."
Mr. Wilson was born and raised in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and lived in Seattle, Washington at the time of his death. He is immediately survived by his two daughters, Sakina Ansari and Azula Carmen Wilson, and his wife, costume designer Constanza Romero.
LOU BELLAMY (Director) is founder and artistic director of Saint Paul's Penumbra Theatre. During his thirty-year tenure as artistic director, Penumbra has evolved into one of America's premier theatres dedicated to dramatic exploration of the African American experience. Under his leadership, Penumbra has produced 20 world premieres, including August Wilson's first professional production, and is proud to have produced more of Mr. Wilson's plays than any theatre in the world. Bellamy is an accomplished professional director, actor, and scholar. Representative directing assignments include: Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers, Zooman and the Sign, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, On the Open Road, Dinah Was!, King Hedley II, Black Eagles, Louie and Ophelia, Riffs, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Hospice, Three Ways Home, African Company Presents Richard III, Little Tommy Parker Celebrated Colored Minstrel Show, Buffalo Hair, Seven Guitars, Portrait of the Artist As A Soul Man Dead, Raisin in the Sun, Two Trains Running, The Mighty Gents, Jitney, Someplace Soft to Fall , Angels in America, Shorteyes, A Lie of the Mind, Tod, the Boy Tod, Wedding Band, The Darker Face of the Earth, and Big White Fog. Outside of Penumbra Theatre, Mr. Bellamy has accepted directing assignments at Kansas City Repertory, Arizona Theatre Company, Guthrie, and Trinity Repertory theatres. He holds degrees from Mankato State, Minnesota, and Hamline universities and is appointed to the teaching faculty of the University of Minnesota's Theatre and Dance Department at the rank of Associate Professor. Bellamy was appointed a McKnight Fellow to the Salzburg Seminar in Theatre, convened at Schloss Leopoldskron in 1996. He is an executive board member of The African Grove Institute for the Arts and has been honored with numerous awards including The W. Harry Davis Foundation Award for Excellence in Afro-centric Education, The Minnesota Martin Luther King, Jr. Humanitarian Award, The National Association of Negro Musicians, Inc. Distinguished Contribution Award, The First Bank Sally Ervine Ordway Arts Award of Commitment, and the first ever IVEY Award for Life-time Achievement.
Signature Theatre Company was founded in 1991 by Artistic Director James Houghton and is the first theatre in the United States dedicated to season-long explorations of a single-living-playwright's body of work. The company's first nine seasons presented the works of Romulus Linney, Lee Blessing, Edward Albee, Horton Foote, Adrienne Kennedy, Sam Shepard, Arthur Miller, John Guare and Maria Irene Fornes. The 10th Anniversary of Signature Theatre
Company -- its 2000-02 All-Premiere Celebration -- featured new works from a selection of the theatre's distinguished past Playwrights-in-Residence. The 2002-03 Season was dedicated to Lanford Wilson, the 2003-04 Season to Bill Irwin, and the 2004-05 Season to Paula Vogel. The first half of the 15th Anniversary (2005-2006) featured The Trip to Bountiful by Horton Foote, Landscape of the Body by John Guare, as well as a workshop and public staged reading of Adrienne Kennedy's adaptation of Madame Bovary. The second half of the Anniversary Celebration features three works by the late August Wilson, who was to be Signature's thirteenth Playwright-in-Residence. As a direct result of the company's work, Signature, its productions and its resident writers have been recognized with the Pulitzer Prize, Lucille Lortel Awards, OBIE Awards and Drama Desk Awards, among many other distinctions. The National Theatre Conference recognized the company as the 2003 Outstanding National Theatre of the Year.
Signature Theatre Company, along with the Joyce International Dance Center, has been designated to create a new performing arts center at the World Trade Center site to be designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry. At Signature Center, the theatre will expand its programming through the creation of three distinct residency programs that reflect the company's core mission to develop and explore the work of an individual playwright.
Sponsorship Information
Signature's 15th Anniversary $15 Ticket Initiative and The August Wilson Series are made possible by the lead sponsorship of Time Warner Inc.
Target is a proud sponsor of The August Wilson Series.
iStar Financial Services Inc. is proud to sponsor TWO TRAINS RUNNING.
Additional funding for Anniversary programming has been provided by Altria Group, Inc., The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Special thanks to The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust for supporting new American plays at Signature Theatre Company. WNYC is the media sponsor of Signature Theatre Company.
The 15th Anniversary Season is supported, in part, by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.
SIGNATURE THEATRE COMPANY's Peter Norton Space is located at 555 W. 42nd Street (between 10th and 11th Avenues). TWO TRAINS RUNNING runs November 7-January 7 with an official press opening on Sunday, December 3. All tickets for the scheduled 8-week run of TWO TRAINS RUNNING through December 30 are $15. Performances January 2-7 will be $55.
Performance schedule is Tuesdays at 7 PM; Wednesdays-Saturdays at 8 PM; Saturdays at 2 PM and Sundays at 2 PM. Wednesday Matinees November 22, December 20 and 27 at 2PM. (No performances on November 23 and December 24 at 8 PM. Additional performances added on November 12, December 10 and 17 at 7PM, November 20 at 8 PM). For single ticket information, please call (212) 244-PLAY (7529) or visit www.signaturetheatre.org.
Contact:
Candi Adams (212) 315-2120, cadams@publicityoffice.com
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