Writer, Performer, Teacher
Current Project
Tickets Now Available
🎟️
Tickets Now Available 🎟️
FRIDAYS @ 7:30pm September 8, 15, 22 and 29th 2023
The Marsh Berkeley – 2120 – Allston Way, Berkeley CA
When Wayne started in on Train Stories he wanted to understand his father and the men of his father’s generation. So he focused on three men who, like his father, worked on and around the railroad. These are men Wayne remembers well, men who had lived most of their lives before the Civil Rights Movement had given them any hope for change. So as any good writer would, Wayne, as he set them the task of being of help to the next generation, he let these men speak and act for themselves. When Wayne started he did not know it was going to be a tragedy, but by the time he finished he knew it could not be anything else.
– David Ford
The Show
“Train Stories” delivers a runaway locomotive of a play that pulses with the mesmerizing rhythms, dreams, and contradictions of being a black man in America.
It’s 1948 America, the post-war pre-civil rights period that saw so many African-Americans leaving the south, Jim Crow and our country’s legacy of slavery only to find…they may be better off with the devil they know.
A tragic story told by three men who ply their trade on the railroad. Each of these men giving their account of an event that will change them forever. Though their perspectives differ, all of their stories speak to the fractured connection African-Americans have to their heritage through slavery and legislation, and poses the question: How do Black men find their place in an America that doesn’t allow many choices, while maintaining their dignity and pride?
This is a story about storytellers and portraying these men are three of the Bay Area’s best. Kirk Waller, nationally known performer and author, Tony Cyprien an East Bay favorite and Wayne Harris, playwright are proud to bring this important story to the stage.
1948 in America. The post-war pre-civil rights era period Train Stories is told by three men, each with their own chilling take of the events of Spring 1948:
Elder Brown – A retired Gandy Dancer (a worker who straightened track on the rail line) who lives on a stretch of row houses along the tracks. He looks at life the same way he looked at being a ‘Caller’ on the railroad work crews: “You got to move them hammers in coordination! You got to make a wheel out of it!”
Tyrone Little – A pimp who rides the train from one town to the next, Tyrone is smart, calculating, and cold. He’s getting older, though, and realizes he hasn’t much more time in the game: “Most Black folks are better off with the Devil they know”
John Henry – A dining room porter who takes pride in his work and his people, but has lost his family’s money as a follower of Marcus Garvey, and is now a broken and disillusioned man: “this America, rips at a Black man and keeps rippin’ at him till all he see is the filth and the anger...and then he turns that anger on everybody and everything in his path...there’s got to be a better way”
“Train Stories is a must see! Kirk Waller, Tony Cyprien and Wayne Harris, three of the Bay Area’s most captivating storytellers on one stage, performing one of the best written stories to come out of our community in a long time.
“It is a tragedy whose truths and unresolved conflicts are not easy to be with, but be with them we must and best to do in the company of these generous and open hearted talents.”
– Mark Kenward
The Performers
Wayne Harris is an award-winning solo performer, writer, educator, curriculum innovator and musician. His plays include “Mother’s Milk”, “The May Day Parade” and “Jockamo”
A gifted artist with wide ranging interests Wayne is passionate about storytelling that combines his lived experience with hopeful declarations for the future. Wayne was invited by the U.S. State Department to travel to the Middle East and perform his play, The Letter; Martin Luther King at the Crossroads.
Having just retired from being Program Director for The Marsh Youth Theater in San Francisco, serving underprivileged students in after-school programs, Wayne now travels extensively throughout the U.S. providing “Improvisation & Performance” workshops for Youth Pageantry groups (marching bands, dance teams etc.)
In addition, he is currently a facilitator for FIPPP, an exciting and important project guiding formerly incarcerated adults in creating, producing and performing their stories and partnering with Berkeley Rep in bringing storytelling to programs in San Francisco Jails.
Tony Cyprien, found the stage through improv 11 years ago. Supportive teachers nudged him toward the stage where he won his first MOTH StorySlam and created a new story for the GrandSlam. He would go on to be invited to two Moth Mainstage performances and for selection on NPR Moth Radio. Other invited storytelling performances of original material included “Bay Area Storytelling Hijacked” (BASH) at Shotgun Players Theater and the “Gather” where invited storytellers collaborated with BATS improvisers. Support, encouragement, and collaboration have included the Marin Shakespeare Company’s Returned Citizens Theater Troupe and the Formerly Incarcerated People’s Performance Project. He appreciates the early opportunities for solo work at Solo Sundays at Stage Werx and at Marsh Theater through Monday Night Marsh and Tell it On Tuesday as well as other venues throughout the Bay Area.
Kirk Waller plays the role of John Henry in Train Stories, is excited to be a part of this production. Kirk has been involved in storytelling, solo performance and theatre for over 25 years. Recently Kirk played Troy Maxson in Pittsburg Theatre Company’s production of August Wilson’s Fences, which he won Best Performer in a Play (Broadway World 2022). His performances has carried him across across the country and beyond. Kirk is a proud papa of two young men and is recently remarried!