RADIO GOLF Will Open at Durham Arts Council

Switch Theatre Company will finish their 2026 season with August Wilson's final masterpiece, Radio Golf. Set in the 1990s in Pittsburgh's historic Hill District, the play follows Harmond Wilks, a charismatic, successful real estate developer with his sights set on becoming the city's first Black mayor. As he and his business partner plan a sleek, modern redevelopment project to revitalize the neighborhood, they face complex moral and ethical dilemmas tied to community heritage, gentrification, and his own family's past.

Radio Golf completes Wilson's celebrated ten-play Century Cycle, which captures the socio-political shifts affecting Black America decade by decade – and in the 1990's, gentrification took center stage. DeAndre Saunders brings a steady optimism to the role of Harmond, while his ambitious partner Roosevelt (Gus Hummings) is more willing to embrace the compromises needed to do business in a still-white America. Sterling Johnson (Wayne Edmondson) and “Old Joe” Barlow (Gerald Campbell) are frequent visitors to Harmond's campaign office, where their stories and connections to Harmond's past begin to affect the development and the campaign. This does not sit well with Harmond's savvy wife Mame (Shamere Reid), who has put her own ambitions aside to assist her husband. The warmth, humor, and rhythmic poetry characteristic of Wilson's writing eases audiences into deeper discussion around themes that are profoundly relevant in Durham.

The title “Radio Golf” is a brilliant piece of symbolic shorthand, blending two very different elements of modern American life that drive the play's central conflict. As modern businessmen, both Harmond and Wilks are fans of the sport, with Roosevelt eventually creating a radio broadcast venture to chase status and wealth. Golf represents upper-crust capitalism, luxury, individualism, and mainstream American success, and for Roosevelt, playing golf and entering corporate boardrooms are symbols of having 'arrived.' Together, 'Radio Golf' becomes a metaphor for the sleek, superficial, and sometimes soulless commercial modernization sweeping through communities at the turn of the 21st century.

Performances run from October 22 through October 31 at the Net Friends Theater at the Durham Arts Council, 120 Morris St., Durham. Tickets for all performances range from $20 - $29, with discounts available for groups of 4 or more.