About This Show
King Hedley II, written by August Wilson, is set in 1985 in Pittsburgh’s Hill Distict. It is a time of urban devestation brought on by slash and burn economic policies of the time. Job opportunities are scarce and violence is a part of everyday life. The King of the title is selling hot refrigerators along with his partner Mister, scrambling to get enough money together to start their own business. King’s wife, Tonya, the 35-year-old mother of a teenager who is herself a mother, is struggling with the news that she is pregnant again. King is the son of Ruby, the high-spirited young woman of Wilson’s Seven Guitars. Ruby’s history of hooking up with unreliable men continues with Elmore, a smooth-talking con man from her past with the capacity to poison the future.
