EVENTS of Creative and Performing Arts Center Inc.
To obtain tickets for FENCES by avoiding online website scams, call the Hylton Performing Arts Center @ 703.993.7550 or click here
Event Calendar (gmu.edu).
New show dates and times:
Saturday, September 16 at 2:00 and 7:00 PM
Sunday, September 17 at 3:00 PM
Friday, September 22 at 7:00 PM
Saturday, September 23 at 2:00 and 7:00 PM
Sunday, September 24 at 3:00 PM
Play Synopsis
Set in 1957, just before the start of the Civil Rights Movement, FENCES takes place during a time when organized baseball is finally integrated, but racial discrimination remains widespread. FENCES’ protagonist, Pittsburgh sanitation worker Troy Maxson, once dreamed of a baseball career but was too old when the major leagues began admitting Black athletes.
Once a slugger in the Negro League, Troy is consumed with bitterness. Facing his own disappointments and racial barriers at work, Troy also grapples with his son’s hope for a college football scholarship and is confronted by his wife about his infidelity.
FENCES is presented by special arrangement with The American Century Cycle.
Playwright Synopsis
During his brief 60-year life, African American playwright August Wilson won two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, seven New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards, the Peabody Award, and a Tony Award among other accolades. Wilson began his literary life as a poet and short story writer, turning to drama in 1977 at the age of 32. From that point on, drama became Wilson’s genre of choice, eventually resulting in 10 plays he called The Century Cycle (also known as The Pittsburgh Cycle), which he produced from 1982 to 2005. The works chronicled African American life of the decades from the 1900 to 1990s. In addition to being performed on Broadway, Wilson’s work has been adapted for television and film. A model of lifelong learning, Wilson dropped out of school at age 15 but immediately proceeded to educate himself by reading extensively in a neighborhood public library. In later life, he was awarded Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships and was posthumously (2006) inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame, which honors Lifetime Achievement in the American theater.