City of Asylum @ Home

This is an unusual interview for Actors Talk August: a duo of young actors just finishing their first August Wilson play. Brenden Peifer and Melessie Clark are playing Sterling and Risa in “Two Trains Running,” directed by Justin Emeka at Pittsburgh Public Theater (through June 19). Their first encounter with August Wilson traditions, characters and an experienced cast feeds plenty of thought by two lively, smart, responsive professionals just starting their August Wilson journeys.

The #notwhite collective in-Dialogue series features conversations with BIPOC, AALANA, indigenous and immigrant artists and arts administrators.
The series reimagines the past and present history of the arts sector by engaging and presenting the wealth of experience, strategies, and tactics of the global majority, notwhite descendants, inheritors of colonialism, indigenous and immigrants who navigate a predominantly white arts sector. 
June’s program features artists: Staycee Pearl and Kuldeep Singh

The #notwhite collective in-Dialogue series features conversations with BIPOC, AALANA, indigenous and immigrant artists and arts administrators.
The series reimagines the past and present history of the arts sector by engaging and presenting the wealth of experience, strategies, and tactics of the global majority, notwhite descendants, inheritors of colonialism, indigenous and immigrants who navigate a predominantly white arts sector.
May’s program features artists Raul Moarquech and Toi Derricotte

August Wilson House celebrates America’s greatest playwright with substantial insider interviews, with leading August Wilson actors, directors and artists, national and regional. Hosted and moderated  by Chris Rawson, veteran Pittsburgh Post-Gazette theater critic who chronicled Wilson’s career and became a friend. The goal is to capture the memories, anecdotes and insights of those who know Wilson’s epic American Century Cycle from the inside.

August Wilson House celebrates America’s greatest playwright with substantial insider interviews, with leading August Wilson actors, directors and artists, national and regional. Hosted and moderated  by Chris Rawson, veteran Pittsburgh Post-Gazette theater critic who chronicled Wilson’s career and became a friend. The goal is to capture the memories, anecdotes and insights of those who know Wilson’s epic American Century Cycle from the inside.

The #notwhite collective in-Dialogue series features conversations with BIPOC, AALANA, indigenous and immigrant artists and arts administrators. April’s program features artists Marika Constantino & DS Kinsel.

August Wilson House celebrates America’s greatest playwright with substantial insider interviews, with leading August Wilson actors, directors and artists, national and regional. Featuring Ron OJ Parson is working now on his 30th August Wilson production, sometimes as an actor but mainly a director, where he is just one-and-a-half shows short of completing his 10-play Cycle. His long journey allowed him to persuade Chicago’s Court Theatre to consider Wilson a classic, along with other Black playwrights. He says, “I like to bring August into the room.”

Chuck Smith is a long-time, active August Wilson director, a resident director at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, where he’s supervised and directed Wilson plays (including Gem of the Ocean, which just closed) and, during his free time, a regular director at the West coast Black Theatre Troupe in Sarasota. He seems to know just about everyone in the Wilsonian theater universe. We’ll have a good time talking!

The #notwhite collective in-Dialogue series features conversations with BIPOC, AALANA, indigenous and immigrant artists and arts administrators. March’s conversation features Bekezela Mguni & Erin Perry.