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August Wilson
Signature Theatre Company's 2006-2007 August Wilson Series pays tribute to the late playwright by featuring three works from his renowned cycle of plays that explores the experience of African-Americans during each decade of the twentieth century. From post-slavery existence (Gem of the Ocean) and the Great Depression (The Piano Lesson) through the rise of the Black Power Movement (Two Trains Running) and black economic and political empowerment by the 1990s (Radio Golf), Wilson's ten-play cycle represents the history of African-Americans through the spiritual children of Aunt Ester, his 378-year-old conjure woman (whose age reflects the number of years black people had been in the Americas by 1997). The series at Signature begins July 31, 2006 with Seven Guitars, set in the 1940s, followed by Two Trains Running (1960s) and King Hedley II (1980s). Rife with themes of family, identity, and religiosity, all ten plays, except one, occur in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Wilson was raised.
Born April 27, 1945, Frederick August Kittel was the son of an African-American cleaning woman and a German baker. He encountered racism from an early age and, at fifteen, withdrew from high school when a teacher accused him of plagiarism. He then proceeded to educate himself at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, where he discovered the literature and poetry of Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright and Langston Hughes, among others. "If you could read, you could do anything," he said at the library's 100th Anniversary Celebration in 1999. "Without reading you were left to the devices of your own native intelligence and the things you could do were limited." Music was also a profound influence on Wilson, and it was not long after he left school that he first heard a recording by blues chanteuse Bessie Smith. He later described this formative experience, saying, "…the universe stuttered and everything fell to a new place. With my discovery of Bessie Smith and the blues I had been given a world that contained my image, a world at once rich and varied, marked and marking, brutal and beautiful, and at crucial odds with the larger world that contained it..." Wilson considered the blues one of "Four B's" that were crucial inspirations – the other B's were writers Amiri Baraka and Jorge Luis Borges and artist Romare Bearden.
Wilson marked April 1, 1965 as the day he invested a hard earned $20 on a typewriter, and he wrote poetry for many years before becoming a playwright. His early theatrical endeavors included cofounding the Black Horizons theatre company in 1968 in Pittsburgh. Ten years later he moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, and in 1980 won a Jerome Fellowship given by the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis for his play Jitney. Wilson later recalled, "It was then that I began to think of myself as a playwright, which is absolutely crucial to the work. It is important to claim it."
He made his home in the Twin Cities for many years, but he would soon also find an artistic home at the National Playwrights Conference of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. After submitting several plays, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom was chosen for inclusion in the 1982 Conference, and was directed by Lloyd Richards in its Conference staged reading presentation. This debut began a legendary collaboration between the two men that eventually included six plays that premiered at the Conference and went on to Broadway productions directed by Richards. Wilson also shared a long collaboration with theatrical producer Benjamin Mordecai, and in recent years worked with directors Marion McClinton and Kenny Leon on the Broadway productions of his later plays. Over the years, he received countless awards and honors including two Pulitzer Prizes in Drama, the Tony Award, Guggenheim and Rockefeller Fellowships, and many honorary degrees from colleges and universities. In October 2005, the Virginia Theatre in the Broadway theatre district was renamed the August Wilson Theatre to celebrate him; he is the first and only African-American with a Broadway theatre to bear his name.
In 1996, Wilson engendered controversy in the American theatre community when he delivered the keynote address at the 11th Biennial Theatre Communications Group conference (published in book form as The Ground on Which I Stand). Wilson spoke about cultural imperialism in the American theatre and emphasized the need for greater funding of black theatre. "We are Africans. We are Americans. The irreversible sweep of history has decreed that," he said. "We are artists who seek to develop our talents and give expression to our personalities. We bring advantage to the common ground that is the American theatre." His provocative address spawned a series of debates about diversity, race, and representation, including a public debate and a summit for black theatre professionals in 1998.
An enormous loss befell the American theatre community when Wilson succumbed to cancer last year at the age of 60, just months after completing Radio Golf, the final play of the cycle. His legacy and memory are manifest at Signature, however, where the 15th Anniversary season celebrates his life with productions of the fifth, seventh, and ninth chapters of his saga. Seven Guitars, begins with the funeral of blues musician Floyd "Schoolboy" Barton in the Hill District in 1948 and relives the days before his unexpected death. Ruben Santiago-Hudson, who appeared in the original Broadway production, directs. Two Trains Running, set in 1969, follows the regulars at a local restaurant at the end of the Civil Rights Movement and the beginning of the Black Power Movement. Lou Bellamy, founding producer of Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, where some of Wilson's earlier work premiered, directs this second production of the series. Finally, King Hedley II, set in 1985, is a continuation of Seven Guitars: a woman faces past demons at the same time her son, recently released from prison, attempts to better himself in the face of external controls that want to destroy him.
For four years, Signature planned to have Wilson as Playwright-in-Residence, and the late playwright looked forward to a season at Signature as his first creative opportunity beyond the ten-play cycle. Though the original Wilson season has been reimagined due to his unfortunate death, Signature is honored to proceed with revisits to three Wilson plays. We hope the Wilson series is a testament to Wilson, his dramatic vision, and his dramatic achievement.
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