Written by August Wilson and directed by Lili-Anne Brown

The Acting Company is the only professional theater principally dedicated to the development of young classical actors. Founded in 1972 by John Houseman and Margot Harley from the first graduating class of the Drama Division of The Juilliard School, The Company has launched the careers of some 400 actors, while bringing high quality professional theater to hundreds of communities from coast to coast.

This Pulitzer Prize finalist, set in a Pittsburgh coffee shop, is the 1960s chapter of August Wilson’s American Century Cycle, a decade-by-decade saga of African American life in the 20th century. Memphis Lee’s coffee shop lies in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, a neighborhood on the brink of economic development. The restaurant serves as a hangout for a host of regulars: a local intellectual, an elderly man who imparts the secrets of life as learned from a 322-year-old sage, an ex-con, a numbers runner, a laconic waitress who slashed her legs to keep men away, and a developmentally disabled man who was once cheated out of a ham. With Chekhovian obliqueness, the author reveals simple truths, hopes and dreams, creating a microcosm of an era and a community on the brink of change.

“The Acting Company has a long and storied history as a launch pad for successful actors such as Patti LuPone, Jesse L. Martin, Kevin Kline, and Rainn Wilson. Their formula is fairly simple: take professional actors on nationwide tours to develop their skills while exposing audiences … to classical works of theater.” — DC Theater Arts