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A Stage Review of Radio Golf:  
New African Grove Completes the Cycle 

 
New African Grove Theatre Company 

South Fulton Arts Center; College Park, Georgia 
July 13-22, 2018 

Directed by Natasha Young 

 
By Christopher Bell 

Associate Professor of English, University of North Georgia 

              

. . . it can be difficult to train performers in the demanding 
rigors of Wilson’s language. 

− Keith Franklin, Artistic Director 
 

Abstract  
A stage review of August Wilson’s Radio Golf at the New African Grove Theatre Company in College 
Park, Georgia, July 2018. 

 
Keywords 

August Wilson, Radio Golf, New African Grove Theatre, Pittsburgh, American Century Cycle, William Shakespeare, 
David Mamet, Natasha Young, Keith Franklin, Nic Starr 

August Wilson most certainly would have appreciated the performance of Radio 
Golf by the New African Grove Theatre Company on July 21, 2018, which took place at the 
South Fulton Arts Center in College Park, Georgia, which is a former public school. The 
location is fitting, as it reflects Wilson’s own nascent work with Black 
Horizons, a community theater he helped found in the late 1960s that 
was dedicated to raising the consciousness of the black populace and 
whose performance space was the A. Leo Weil Elementary School on 
Centre Avenue. New African Grove is also a small community theater 
committed, according to the company’s Artistic Director Keith Franklin, 
to staging plays centered on the African diaspora. And while Wilson’s 
work has reached the heights of Broadway and London’s West End, his 
work centers on characters struggling day to day to have their voices 
heard and dignity recognized, much like the tireless efforts of this small 
outfit that stages shows for a peak audience of eighty. What Wilson would have found most 
delightful about this New African Grove performance is that it marked the company’s 
completion of the entire American Century Cycle, one of the few theaters in the country to 
accomplish this feat. 

 I asked Franklin what the most difficult part of completing the cycle was. He said 
that because the company draws many actors from the community it can be difficult to train 

Chris Bell 



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performers in the demanding rigors of Wilson’s language. These performers are in some 
ways more obligated to that aspect of the playwright’s work, as the set and costuming are 
constrained by a limited budget, not to mention the South Fulton Arts Center stage is tiny. 
The director for this production, Natasha Young, also points out with a chuckle that the 
actors’ compensation is meager, not even “What would allow anyone to go on a shopping 
spree.” These actors and the crew are truly dedicated to bringing August Wilson’s voice to 
the community and that dedication was evident in the production. 

 It’s the connection to the characters, a community of people forgotten by the city of 
Pittsburgh and largely unknown to the world outside the city, that New African Grove 
captured in its performance of Radio Golf. When asked what was most satisfying about 
completing the American Century Cycle, Young said it was “the joy of knowing that we have 
provided a service to the community.” That service is honoring the legacy of August Wilson, 
himself a fifteen-year-old high school dropout who eventually left the troubled streets of his 
youth to become one of America’s great playwrights, but took the mostly ignored members 
of the Hill District community with him and put them on stage.  

 As noted, the New African Grove performers showed great care for Wilson’s work. 
Nic Starr in particular stood out as Sterling, playing the role with an abundance of humor. 
When needed, however, the actor, a physically imposing man, convinces the audience that 
Sterling is a threat to Harmond and Roosevelt, two businessmen whose current venture 
includes a plan to tear down a house they purchased illegally from its rightful owner, Old Joe 
Barlow. When Sterling learns of this plan, Starr turns off the charm and becomes 
threatening, bearing down on the other characters: “If you fuck with Mr. Barlow’s house . . . 
if you move one goddam pebble . . . you gonna have to answer to me on the battlefield.” As 
the lights come down on the first act with these lines, the audience audibly exhaled, clearly 
moved by Starr’s sudden turn in demeanor. 

 Sterling’s main target becomes Roosevelt, and Paris Crayton plays the latter 
character how Wilson draws him, as an overly ambitious businessman who only cares about 
how much money he can stack in a metaphorical wheelbarrow. Roosevelt has some of the 
most unseemly lines in Wilson’s drama, such as his dressing down of Sterling, after the latter 
accuses of Roosevelt of holding back the black community by not giving back to it, despite 
his obvious means to do so: “It’s not my fault your daddy’s in jail, your mama’s on drugs, your 
little sister’s pregnant and the kids don’t have any food ’cause the welfare cut off the money . 
. . Get up off your ass . . . quit stealing . . . get a job . . . pay your taxes.” While none of these 
things are true for Sterling and are horrific sweeping generalizations of the black community 
itself, Crayton delivered them as needed, with the conviction of the character himself, one 
who glances at a person once and believes he can tell the individual’s entire history.  

 In the middle of the fray stands Franklin, the aforementioned artistic director of 
New Grove, who plays Harmond, the play’s protagonist. An ambitious man, Harmond seeks 
to revitalize the run-down Hill District with his business plan, while simultaneously running 
for mayor. Ultimately, Harmond decides neither the commercial venture or mayoral 
candidacy is worth more than Old Joe being allowed to keep his house. Although Franklin 
plays Harmond as initially bewildered as he loses control of his business and political 
aspirations, he later turns decidedly defiant. When Roosevelt tells Harmond he plans to 
purchase the controlling stake in Bedford Hills and will use a white man’s financial backing 
as a silent partner, Harmond calls Roosevelt, a lifelong friend, “The shuffling, grinning 
nigger in the woodpile.” Franklin perfectly captures the character’s disgust. The actor also 
convincingly shows that Harmond is a changed man at the end of the play, one who relishes 
the opportunity to stand with a group of local activists, led by Sterling, protesting the 
imminent destruction of Old Joe’s House.   

 New African Grove’s performance of Radio Golf was splendid. More importantly, 
that the production served as the company’s completion of August Wilson’s American 
Century Cycle seems fitting. The play stresses that black leaders are needed to fight for the 



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community, not strip it of its vitality, as Roosevelt attempts to do. The work is Wilson’s most 
overtly political drama, and, as the last play he composed before his death in 2005, it serves 
as a reminder that the playwright’s first experiences were with a community theater that 
sought to raise the consciousness of the black community. The dramatist would have been 
pleased to know of a similar troupe so dedicated to presenting his work to that same 
community, which, despite its financial limitations, has managed to complete all ten of his 
magnificent plays in fine fashion. 

 And what’s in store next for New African Grove? It plans to start a second run of the 
American Century Cycle, beginning with Gem of the Ocean in July of 2019. 

Works Cited 

Wilson, August.  Radio Golf.  Theatre Communications Group.  2007. 

Author Bio 

Dr. Christopher Bell is Associate Professor of English at the University of North Georgia 
where he teaches courses in American Literature, African American Literature, and World 
Drama. 

 
 
 
 
 
 

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	A Stage Review of Radio Golf:  New African Grove Completes the Cycle
	New African Grove Theatre Company
	South Fulton Arts Center; College Park, Georgia
	July 13-22, 2018
	Directed by Natasha Young
	Abstract
	Keywords

	Works Cited
	Author Bio

