AARP Celebrates Black History Month with Delta Sigma Theta

In recognition of Black History Month, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority (Wilmington Chapter) presents August Wilson’s play Two Trains Running. The play explores the social and psychological manifestations of changing attitudes toward race, from the perspective of urban blacks in the late 1960’s.

Two Trains Running, which Time magazine hailed as "his most mature work to date, " offers another mesmerizing chapter in his remarkable cycle of plays about the black experience in twentieth-century America.

It is Pittsburgh, 1969. The regulars of Memphis Lee's restaurant are struggling to cope with the turbulence of a world that is changing rapidly around them and fighting back when they can. As the play unfolds, Memphis's diner - and the rest of his block - is scheduled to be torn down, a casualty of the city's renovation project that is sweeping away the buildings of a community, but not its spirit.

Into this fray comes Sterling, the ex-con who embraces the tenets of Malcolm X; Wolf, the bookie who has learned to play by the white man's rules; Risa, a waitress of quiet dignity who has mutilated her legs to distance herself from men; and Holloway, the resident philosopher and fervent believer in the prophecies of a legendary 322-year-old woman down the street, a reminder of their struggle and heritage.

With compassion, humor, and a superb sense of place and time, Wilson paints a vivid portrait of everyday lives in the shadow of great events, and of unsung men and women who are anything but ordinary.

See Two Trains Running at the Grand Opera House in downtown Wilmington on Sunday, Feb. 19th. Purchase tickets here.