Upcoming: Fences by August Wilson, City Theatre, February 26 - March 22

Received January 12:

The City Theatre Steps to the Plate with August Wilson's Classic Play Fences
February 26 – March 22

For the first time in its short history, and as a part of Black History month, The City Theatre Company will perform a major production with an African-American cast when it presents August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Fences. Featuring a cast of new and returning CTC actors, Fences will open a four week run beginning February 26 at the City Theatre.

“Death ain’t nothing but a fastball on the outside corner.”

August Wilson’s theatre is rarely done in Austin, and particularly with smaller theatre companies, because of the demands on the cast and the issues they expose including race, poverty, and equality. “CTC has been trying to expand our artistic opportunities for people of color and to provide our audiences with a wider range of stories and cultural perspectives,” said Artistic Director Andy Berkovsky. “The challenge is one reason we chose ‘Fences,’” he added. “And it is a tremendous play.”

Written by Wilson in 1985, the play tells the story of Troy Maxson, a former star of the Negro baseball league who is working as a garbage collector in 1957. In his view, the world is comprised of a series of fences that have closed him in during his life, including racism, poverty, lack of education, and loneliness. Denied one opportunity after another – despite his talent, work, and intelligence – Maxson struggles to protect his family, even as he fences them in while doing so. His son, Corey, struggles to throw off the reins of his domineering, yet well-meaning father. His wife, Rose, is a devoted and loving woman who is wronged by her unhappy husband. The play certainly provides a perspective into the African-American experience in the first half of the 20th century, yet at the same time, it manages to transcend those boundaries and speak eloquently to the universal elements of human relationships. “That is the genius of Wilson’s work,” Berkovsky added. Wilson’s play received nearly every major theatrical award in 1987, including the Tony Award for Best Play, the Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics Award, the Outer Circle Theatre Award and many others. The play will be returning to Broadway in the spring of 2009 directed by Suzan – Lori Parks.

Wilson wrote Fences as part of a ten-play cycle with each play set in a different decade of the 20th century and includes Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson, Gem of the Ocean, and his most recent Radio Golf. John Lahr, drama critic of The New Yorker, wrote: “The blues are catastrophe expressed lyrically; so are Wilson’s plays, which swing with the pulse of the African-American people, as they moved, over the decades, from property to personhood.” In writing them, he not only completed the cycle, but achieved this goal of chronicling the African-American experience over a hundred year period. Wilson died in 2005 in his hometown of Seattle.

The show is directed by Lisa Jordon, a recent graduate of Texas State University with her master’s degree in directing and production. Set design by fellow Texas State University graduate Daniel LeFave with costumes by Andy Berkovsky and Bert Flanagan. The production will feature the talents of Prince Camp (Lyons), Rod Crain (Bono), Gina Houston (Rose), McArthur Moore (Gabriel), Robert Pellette (Troy), and Richard Romeo (Cory).

TICKET AND PERFORMANCE INFORMATION
February 26- March 22
Thursday – Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Sunday 5:30 p.m.
The City Theatre, 3823 Airport Blvd. – east between Manor Road and 38 ½ St.
Reservations 512-524-2870 or info@citytheatreaustin.org.
Tickets $15-20, Guaranteed Reserved Seating $25, Students $12, Group discounts available
Thursdays pay what you can.
Visit our website www.citytheatreaustin.org