Pitt's Kuntu Repertory Theatre Wraps Up Season With August Wilson's 'Radio Golf'

The University of Pittsburgh’s Kuntu Repertory Theatre closes its 2009-10 season with Radio Golf by August Wilson—the final play in Wilson’s unprecedented 10-play cycle chronicling Black life in 20th-century America. The play runs May 27 through June 12 in the Seventh-Floor Auditorium of Alumni Hall.

Set in Pittsburgh in the late 1990s, Radio Golf is a fast-paced dynamic work about successful entrepreneur Harmond Wilks, who aspires to become the city’s first Black mayor. But when Wilks’ past begins to catch up with him, some secrets are revealed that could be his undoing.

Three of the play’s lead characters will be played by actors from three of Pittsburgh’s major universities: Carnegie Mellon University senior Eric Berryman plays Wilks; Point Park University senior Lichelle Byrd assumes the role of Mame Wilks; and Ruffin Prentiss, who graduated from Pitt earlier this month with a BA in theater, performs the role of Roosevelt Hicks.

Rounding out the ensemble are Anton Floyd, a New York City actor previously featured in Kuntu’s production of The Electronic Negro, playing the role of Sterling Johnson, and Montez Freeland, making his debut with Kuntu as Elder Joseph Barlow. Radio Golf will be directed by Vernell A. Lillie, founder and artistic director of Pitt’s Kuntu Repertory Theatre and a professor emeritus of Africana Studies at Pitt.

Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m.

Matinees are scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday, June 5, and 11 a.m. Thursday, June 10.

Students will be admitted for $5; admission is $20 for adults, $14 for Pitt faculty and staff, and $13 for senior citizens. Groups of 10 or more will receive a discount.

Tickets are available at the box office of the William Pitt Union; through ProArts at 412-394-3353 or www.proartstickets.org; or at Dorsey’s Record Shop, 7614 Frankstown Ave., Homewood. For more information, call 412-624-7298 or visit www.kuntu.org.