Meet the Cast of East Texas Hot Links
Pull up a seat at Top O’ the Hill Café! Meet the amazing cast bringing East Texas Hot Links – Eugene Lee’s lyrical masterpiece – to life. From top to bottom, left to right: Willie B., David Dowd, Juwan Lockett, Kelvin Roston Jr., A.C. Smith, Geno Walker, AnJi White, and Alfred H. Wilson.
Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, East Texas Hot Links is simultaneously a gripping character study, a lyrical masterpiece, and a juggernaut of suspense. It is 1955 in the piney woods of East Texas and racial tensions are high, yet the Top O’ the Hill Café remains a haven. There, regulars share stories, joke, unwind, and trade friendly barbs. The café is a refuge that keeps the outside world at bay, until a mysterious omen forces the outside in.
Court’s 2024/25 season opener is a tribute to Resident Artist and Director Ron OJ Parson’s (Two Trains Running) first production in Chicago, his deep collaboration with playwright Eugene Lee, and the founding of Onyx Theatre Ensemble, the storied theatre company that first produced East Texas Hot Links in Chicago thirty years ago.
Parson shares, “East Texas Hot Links was my inaugural production in Chicago upon my arrival from the Big Apple. It was also the first production of Onyx Theatre Ensemble, co-founded by myself and actor Alfred H. Wilson in 1994. Even though 30 years have passed since that Onyx production, this play has everlasting relevance. Filled with love, humor, passion, and suspense – with the rhythm, timing, and lyricism reminiscent of the poetry of August Wilson – East Texas Hot Links will have you on the edge of your seat.”
By returning to Top O’ the Hill Café decades later, Parson asserts East Texas’s place in the modern theatrical canon and honors the legacy of Onyx. Join us for this simmering story of secrets and survival.
East Texas Hot Links runs from September 6 – 29. Tickets are available now, and can be purchased online or by calling the Box Office at (773) 753-4472.
Subscriptions to the rest of 2024/25 season – including East Texas Hot Links – are also on sale! Packages start at $38 per ticket and unlock a number of subscriber benefits, including discounts at the lobby bar, an exclusive discount to An Iliad, and unlimited ticket exchanges. Experience maximum flexibility for a fraction of the cost; subscriptions can be purchased online or by calling the Box Office.