AUGUST WILSON RETROSPECTIVE

August Wilson's 20th Century
MARCH 4 - APRIL 6, 2008
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC 

The August Wilson's 20th Century retrospective presenting all ten plays in chronological order was a great success.  Everyone in attendance shared how valuable it was to see the plays presented in that fashion.  Seeing them in that order, made the stores feel like a single novel with 10 chapters.  The cast of  who's  who was outstanding and perfectly picked by Artistic Director, Kenny Leon, who called on artists who had a long lasting relationships with August, bringing with them decades of history.

Kudos to everyone.  Unfortunately, I was unable to see all of the plays. The three that I did see most assuredly wet my appetite for more.  It would be fantastic if each of the African American theatre companies would join together to produce them in chronological order and present the August Wilson Season of Plays.

Who was AUGUST WILSON:

August Wilson was born on August 27, 1945 in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and raised by Daisy Wilson, his African American mother, along with his siblings after Frederick August Kittle, his white father left them. Fed-up with the racism that plagued him in the Pittsburgh Public School System, August dropped out in the 10th grade and turned to the streets for his education. He worked odd jobs and ultimately became his own teacher when he decided to make the public library his school. He learned from the many great writers like Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes and Richard Wright. After enough rejection letters from magazines for his poetry, he turned to playwriting. It was at the Playwrights Center of Pittsburgh where he penned his first success MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM in 1983. Ma Rainey moved on the Yale Repertory Theatre in Connecticut, which forged a lifetime friendship and working relationship with Lloyd Richards. The play then ran on Broadway with Teresa Merritt cast as Ma.  Ma Rainey went on to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and the rest, as they say, is His-story. August Wilson left us too soon. April 2005 he completed RADIO GOLF, the last play in the series, in June 2005 he was diagnosed with liver cancer and on October 2, 2005 he made his transition from finite to infinite.  August Wilson was only 60 years old.

August Wilson received many accolades, fellowships and awards for his works including the Rockefeller and Guggenheim Fellowships, the Pulitzer Prize, Tony Awards, Drama Desk Awards, Helen Hayes Award, American Theatre Critics Award, the 1999 National Humanities Medal, and the AUDELCO Award among many others. He received honorary degrees from many colleges universities and was the only person in history to receive a high school diploma from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA. In November 2005, the AUDELCO Playwrights award was renamed in his honor. August Wilson is the only African American playwright to have a Broadway theatre renamed in his honor. The Virginia Theatre on 52nd Street in New York city is now the August Wilson Theatre.

The African American arts scene has been changed forever because of the legacy left by August Wilson. Those of us who work in this business and those of us who are the ticket buyers are forever in his debt. We thank him for the sacrifice he made to tell our story in our own words. August Wilson gave new life to Langston Hughes' words “It will be me myself.”

"SEE YOU AT THE THEATRE..."

Peace & Blessings

Darsell