Cast announced for August Wilson’s Two Trains Running tour

Published: 17 July 2019
Reporter: Steve Orme

Tensions on the rise: Two Trains Running

Northampton’s Royal and Derngate and English Touring Theatre have revealed the cast for their co-production of August Wilson’s Two Trains Running which will open in Northampton before a short tour.

The cast comprises Geoff Aymer (West), Ray Emmet Brown (Wolf), Derek Ezenagu (Hambone), Andrew French (Memphis), Leon Herbert (Holloway), Michael Salami (Sterling) and Anita-Joy Uwajeh (Risa).

Aymer is in the cast of the musical The Color Purple, a Leicester Curve and Birmingham Hippodrome co-production which is touring the UK.

Emmet Brown appeared in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester in 2010 while Derek Ezenagu played Nathan Gillard in Perseverance Drive by Robin Soans at the Bush Theatre in 2014.

French appeared in While We're Here by Barney Norris in the Bush Theatre Studio in 2017 and took the lead role in Agamemnon by Caroline Bird in The Iphigenia Quartet at the Gate, Notting Hill in 2016.

Salami appeared in Anthony Neilson’s The Night Before Christmas at Southwark Playhouse in 2018.

Uwajeh was Cordelia in Shakespeare’s King Lear at the Duke of York’s Theatre in 2018 and Cesario in Twelfth Night at the Globe Theatre in 2017.

Two Trains Running will be directed by Nancy Medina, recipient of the 2018 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award which enables “an emerging director of exceptional potential” to direct their first regional mainstage production.

The play is set in Pittsburgh in 1969 when there is a controversial new president in the White House and racial tensions are on the rise. The regulars of Memphis Lee’s restaurant are struggling to cope with the turbulence of a rapidly changing world. The diner is in threat of being torn down, a casualty of the city’s renovation project that is sweeping away the buildings of a community—but not its spirit.

Two Trains Running will open at Royal and Derngate on Saturday 31 August and runs until Saturday 14 September. It tours to Nuffield Southampton Theatres (17 until 21 September), Oxford Playhouse (24 until 28 September), Cast, Doncaster from 1 until 5 October, New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich from 8 until 12 October, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford from 15 until 19 October and Derby Theatre from 22 until 27 October.

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