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August Wilson (né Frederick August Kittel Jr.; April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America". [1] He is best known for a series of 10 plays, collectively called The Pittsburgh Cycle (or The Century Cycle ) , which chronicle the experiences and ...
Jan 28, 2015 · Learn about the life and work of August Wilson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who chronicled the African-American experience in the 20th century. Explore his 10-play cycle, his artistic development, his legacy and his timeline.
May 31, 2024 · August Wilson was a playwright who penned an acclaimed cycle of plays, each set in a different decade of the 20th century, about Black American life. He won Pulitzer Prizes for two of them: Fences and The Piano Lesson.
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Jan 24, 2024 · Who Was August Wilson? Famed playwright August Wilson wrote his first play, Jitney, in 1979. Fences earned him a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award in 1987. Wilson won another Pulitzer Prize...
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- Jitney (1979) Premiere: 1982, Allegheny Repertory Theatre, Pittsburgh; 2000 premiere Off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre. Synopsis: Set in an unofficial taxi station threatened with demolition in 1977, Jitney explores the lives and relationships of drivers, highlighting conflicts between generations and different concepts of legacy and identity.
- Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1982) Ebony Jo-Ann performs Ma Rainey’s monologue exclusively for August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand. Premiere: 1984, Yale Repertory Theatre; subsequent 1984 Broadway opening at the Cort Theatre.
- Fences (1984) Rosalyn Coleman (Rose), Ray Anthony Thomas (Troy) and Horace Rogers (Jim Bono) perform a scene from Fences exclusively for August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand.
- Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1984) Premiere: 1986, Yale Repertory Theatre; 1988, Broadway opening at Ethel Barrymore Theater. Synopsis: Set in a Pittsburgh boardinghouse in 1911, the ensemble play includes characters who were former slaves and examines the residents’ experiences with racism and discrimination.
Jun 19, 2024 · The most accomplished of all African American dramatists in the last half of the 20th century, August Wilson, a high-school dropout and Black Power activist in the 1960s, opened his first major play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, on Broadway in 1984 with great critical and commercial success.
August Wilson, who chronicled the African-American experience in the 20th century in a series of plays that will stand as a landmark in the history of black culture, of American literature and...
