Two Trains Running is a 1990 play by American playwright August Wilson, the sixth in his ten-part series The Pittsburgh Cycle. The play takes place in 1968 in the Hill District, an African-American neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It explores the social and psychological manifestations of changing attitudes toward race from the perspective of its urban Black characters. The play premiered on Broadway in 1992 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Synopsis In 1968 amidst the civil rights movement, Memphis Lee's restaurant is set to be demolished by the city. While he fights to be paid a fair price for his property, his employees and regulars search for work, love, and justice as their neighborhood changes around them. Cast Memphis, a migrant from the Deep South - owner and operator of a restaurant that has been a community center but has declined in business Risa - the only woman in the play, she works at the restaurant. She and Sterling begin a relationship. Sterling - young man from the neighborhood who was recently released from prison Holloway - an elder of this community, he is described as "the seer and the knower" Wolf - a numbers runner, small-time gambler, and "town crier" West - funeral director and longest-standing business owner in the community Hambone - he repeats one phrase in his search for justice Productions Two Trains Running was first performed by the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut in March 1990.<ref>Rizzo, Frank. [http://articles.courant.com/1992-04-13/features/0000203287_1_wilson-s-cycle-wilson-director-lloyd-richards-broadway-producer "'Trains Likely To Be Rep's Last Ride To Broadway"] Hartford Courant, April 13, 1992</ref> Productions soon followed at the Huntington Theatre (Boston, Massachusetts), Seattle Repertory Theatre (Seattle, Washington), and Old Globe Theatre (San Diego, California). The play premiered on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre on April 13, 1992. It closed there on August 30, 1992 after 160 performances and 7 previews. Directed by Lloyd Richards, the cast featured Roscoe Lee Browne as Holloway, Anthony Chisholm as Wolf, Laurence Fishburne as Sterling, Chuck Patterson as West, and Cynthia Martells as Risa. Historical context African-American migration Seeking to escape from poverty, racism, and segregation imposed by "Jim Crow" laws in the South, more than 6 million Black Americans migrated to northern, midwestern and western industrial cities during the early and mid-20th century, a movement ending about 1970. Most of these migrants had worked in agriculture in the former Confederate slave states, and few