From the Publications Dramaturg August Wilson, “Theatreʼs Poet of Black America”

FROM THE PUBLICATIONS DRAMATURG

August Wilson, “Theatre’s Poet of Black America”

Let’s begin with a few earned titles and monikers: Playwright. Historian. Preserver of culture. And as New York Times Theatre critic Charles Isherwood once called him, “Theatre’s Poet of Black America.” Known as the playwright that put 100 years of African American history on the stage, no other playwright has achieved what August Wilson has accomplished with his ten plays that make up The American Century Cycle.

August Wilson came from humble beginnings. He was born Frederick August Kittel, Jr. on April 27, 1945, in a twobedroom flat in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The fourth of six children, Wilson was the first son born to a German immigrant Photo court. of August Wilson Legacy LLC. baker and pastry cook, Frederick August Kittel, Sr. (known as Fritz), and an African American cleaning woman, Daisy Wilson.

One of the only Black students in grade school, Wilson faced racial discrimination daily at Central Catholic High School. In an interview with Christopher Bigsby, Wilson recalls his first encounter with blatant racism, stating, “I suspect my first raw encounter with racism was when I was fourteen. Every day when I went to school, there was a note on my desk saying, “Go home, nigger.” After constant battles with his classmates, Wilson left Central Catholic High School and floated around several schools until enrolling in Gladstone High. Although only in the 9th grade, Wilson’s high I.Q. allowed him to enroll in 10th-grade courses. It was an incident at the new school, however, that would ultimately change Wilson’s life forever. Upon submitting a written report on French military leader and emperor Napoleon, Wilson’s teacher accused him of plagiarism and failed him on the assignment. At the age of 15, Wilson left the school and never returned.

Wilson found solace in books in the local libraries – where he spent his days as he did not inform his mother that he dropped out of school. Wilson consumed the works of Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright. Additionally, Wilson spent his time in several community gathering spaces in the neighborhood, such as barbershops and restaurants, including Eddie’s Restaurant – which inspired the setting of Two Trains Running. The stories Wilson heard, the dialects and rhythmic voices of the people in these

community spaces served as Wilson’s training for playwriting.

Wilson eventually moved out of his mother’s home and, in 1965, changed his name from Freddie Kittel to August Wilson – taking his mother’s last name to honor her sacrifice and dedication and the Black heritage she embodied. This moment was the birthing of August Wilson, the poet. August Wilson was deeply influenced by the Black Power Movement of the 1960s. Wilson considered himself a black nationalist and a cultural nationalist. Wilson was enamored with the writings of Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Ed Bullins, Ishmael Reed, and Malcolm X. Wilson stated, “the Black Power movement of the ‘60s was a reality; it was the kiln in which I was fired and has much to do with the person I am today and the ideas and attitudes that I carry as part of my consciousness.” These years not only witnessed Wilson emerge as a poet, publishing in a variety of periodicals, including Black Lines, the Negro Digest, and Black World, but Wilson began his career in theatre. In addition to penning a few early plays, Wilson co-founded Pittsburgh’s Black Horizons Theatre with fellow playwright Rob Penny.

Although a poet at heart, Wilson turned to playwriting and wrote several plays in the late 1960s and 1970s. In 1981, St. Paul’s Penumbra Theatre staged his first play, Black Bart and the Sacred Hills, a satirical western adapted from a series of his poems. His big break, however, came after submitting Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom to the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut. The play was accepted in 1982. Wilson attended the playwriting workshop at the O’Neill center and would go on to be mentored by Lloyd Richards. Richards, who was the first Black director on Broadway with the 1959 production of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, became Wilson’s most supportive director, thus taking the helm for several of his Broadway premieres, including Fences (1987), The Piano Lesson (1990), and Two Trains Running (1992). August Wilson died on October 2, 2005, of liver cancer. And yet, through his work, his legacy remains. It has been argued that Wilson is comparable to William Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov, Lorraine Hansberry, Arthur Miller, James Baldwin, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, and Toni Morrison. With two Pulitzer Prizes, a Tony Award, several New York Drama Critics Circle awards, and a host of other awards, accolades, and the first Black American to have a Broadway theatre named in his honor, August Wilson is undoubtedly one of the world’s most distinguished figures of arts and letters.