Carter Redwood builds career on his way back to City Theatre.
August Wilson was a natural entry into theater for an aspiring Hill District actor such as Carter Redwood, but his connection goes deeper than most.
His grandfather, Carl Redwood Sr., has a mention in “Radio Golf,” the final play in the late playwright’s American Century Cycle.
Hill District native Carter Redwood, the Pittsburgh CAPA and Carnegie Mellon-University alumnus, has returned to his hometown with a list of stage and screen credits and as a star of City Theatre’s production of Dominique Morisseau’s “Pipeline.”
His first recognition as a stage actor was as a national finalist and two-time regional winner in the August Wilson Monologue Competition.
“August Wilson was my way into theater, and I feel strongly rooted in his work,” said Mr. Redwood, who credits mentor and friend Mark Clayton Southers of Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre with giving him his first opportunity outside of school productions and passing on his passion for Mr. Wilson’s works. The actor played Cory for Mr. Southers in a 2015 production of “Fences.”
New voices such as Ms. Morisseau’s are springing up to tell stories of the AfricanAmerican experience in the 21st century. While “Pipeline” is being performed at City, Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Sweat” will open at Pittsburgh Public Theater. Point Park graduate Ngozi Anyanwu, who was seen at City earlier this year in “Citizens Market,” is starring in her own play, “Good Grief,” which opens off-Broadway on Oct. 30.
“We are in an age of content creation, and opportunities are growing, especially for actors of color,” Mr. Redwood said before a recent rehearsal on the South Side. “I’m thankful for those voices, and the new wave of writers coming to the forefront.”
Ms. Morisseau is a 2018 MacArthur “genius” grant recipient. Her play isn’t about iron and steel, but about a national trend known as the “school-to-prison pipeline,” in which disadvantaged youths are more likely to be incarcerated due to hard-line school and municipal policies.
In “Pipeline,” she follows a public school teacher and mother who sends her son, Omari, to private school, only to see an incident potentially shatter her dreams for him.
“This is a beast of a play on so many levels,” said Mr. Redwood, who plays Omari. “It touches base on so many issues … race, class, family dynamics, relationships with coworkers. It touches base on the work-life balance, on what good parenting looks like. There are so many things in this play that people will latch onto and be moved by.”
When City artistic director and “Pipeline” director Reginald Douglas called Mr.
Redwood about coming home to Pittsburgh for the role, “It was an immediate, ‘Yes,’” the actor said.
Although he is in his mid-20s now, with his boyish good looks, he often plays teenagers, and said “he was in the conversation” in early casting for last year’s Lincoln Center production of “Pipeline.”
“What I did know, whether I was in it or not, this was an amazing play, and an incredible story that needed to be told,” he said.
Being able to pass as a teen has its perks, “especially on TV,” he noted.
“Hollywood has this weird thing where they like to cast older to play younger.”
He played his age in 2010, when he earned his Equity card in City Theatre’s world premiere of “When January Feels Like Summer,” the play that gave him his off-Broadway debut in 2014, the same year he graduated from Carnegie Mellon.
He has returned home “a little more grounded,” having lived in New York for four years, settling in Harlem, and finding work in TV shows such as “Orange Is the New Black” and “Rise,” and on film, including the 2019 release “Brother’s Keeper” with Laurence Fishburne.
Usually when he’s back in town, Mr. Redwood stays with family. But as this is his first time back as a professional, he is residing in City’s South Side housing. He and his castmates also have been taking field trips relevant to the material in “Pipeline,” including to a public high school and Shuman Juvenile Detention Center.
“I’m thankful for everything City has done to help us in the understanding of the story we are telling,” he said. “School-to-prison pipeline is a real thing, and I am recognizing in my participation in this process, it’s actually way bigger than this play. … Moments like talking with the teachers who are with the students every day, trying their best to make a difference in their lives, given this institutionalized oppression, for me, it’s been really eye-opening.”
The playwright has said in interviews that she was inspired to write “Pipeline” as a response to the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Mo. In the ensuing years, there have been widely publicized incidents of violence and racial profiling.
“I could be Omari,” Mr. Redwood said. “This isn’t just for me. This is for all the Omaris, everywhere. This could happen to any kid, and that’s what the play hinges on — when an incident happens, what are the consequences? Who is responsible, and what does justice look like?”