Tennessee Williams had the Mississippi Delta, Eugene O’Neill had New London, Connecticut and August Wilson had the Hill District of Pittsburgh. Located in central Pittsburgh, the Hill District has a rich legacy of culture, commerce and activism in the African American community. Wilson set nine out of ten plays of his Century Cycle in “the Hill”, as it is referred to by its residents. In its streets, on its doorsteps, and within its walls, Wilson found the voices of his characters and their stories. The Hill was first known as “farm number three” and was purchased by entrepreneur Thomas Mellon in the late 1840s, beginning its development as a settled community. In the latter half of the 19th century, the area became a racial and ethnic melting pot for different immigrant cultures. The lower hill, known as “Little Haiti”, provided refuge for runaway slaves and served as the home to many of the region’s abolitionist activities, including being the hub of the Underground Railroad and the headquarters of the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the leading African American newspapers in the country. The Hurricane Club
The Hill District, 1951
Director’s Note
FROM TAMERA N. IZLAR
“I once wrote a short story called ‘The Best Blues Singer in the World’ and it went like this: ‘The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, and Balboa was drowning.’ End of story. That says it all. Nothing else to say. I’ve been rewriting that same story over and over again. All my plays are rewriting that same story. I’m not sure what it means, other than life is hard.” - August Wilson
Fences, the third installment in August Wilson’s ten-play cycle of plays chronicling the experiences of African Americans, was an answer to Wilson’s critics who challenged his ability to write a play that incorporated the classic “well-made” play’s literary requirements. Loosely autobiographical, the characters represented in Fences mirror Wilson’s personal journey. Consequently, Troy’s spirit of advocacy, Cory’s sportsmanship and ignorance of his ancestors’ accomplishments, and Rose’s unwavering faith echoes distant memories from Wilson’s past. In addition to personal life lessons, August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play, Fences, displays intergenerational conflicts, yet also embraces themes of freedom, family, community, socioeconomics, social justice, Christianity, Africanism, and responsibility. Using authentic voices from the Black Diaspora, Wilson’s Fences unapologetically brought value to the experiences of African descendants whose culture, vibrant journeys, and value systems had been deemed insignificant.
During the years leading up to World War I the community experienced growth due to the large numbers of African Americans migrating from the South to escape Jim Crow laws. However, it was in the 1940s and 50s that the Hill saw its biggest influx of people and the population grew to 54,000. It was soon dubbed “little Harlem” because of its vibrant cultural and economic life. Jazz was the thing and the Hill became a known stop on the National Jazz Circuit with clubs like the Hurricane Lounge, Savoy Ballroom, and the legendary Crawford Grill hosting artists such as Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughn, Lena Horne, and Dizzy Gillespie.
During his lifetime, Wilson worked tirelessly to give prominence and notoriety to persons often silenced. In an interview with the Paris Review, Wilson stated,
While the 54,000 residents contributed to a thriving cultural and business community, their presence took its toll on the physical infrastructures causing the city to approve redevelopment of the neighborhood. In 1956, 1,300 structures across 91 acres were demolished, displacing about 8000 residents, the great majority of which were African American, and cutting off the neighborhood from the rest of the city. This led to a dramatic economic decline and deterioration of the neighborhood. In 1968, the Hill received a devastating blow when a week of riots broke out after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, resulting in 505 fires, $620,000 in property damage, one death and 926 arrests. The community was unable to recover and return to its former glory. − Bryan Conger, Dramaturg
In a time in which the fight for equal rights has gained renewed prominence, August Wilson’s Fences continues to shatter and reinvent stereotypical viewpoints of Black America. Equally as paramount is Wilson’s counter-hegemonic sensibility to celebrate the common man; although the play illuminates a Black garbageman as the unlikely protagonist, Fences is a familiar and universal story which the world collectively can empathize with.
“I left Pittsburgh but Pittsburgh never left me. It was on these streets, in this community in this city that I came into manhood and I have a fierce affection for the Hill District and the people who raised me, who have sanctioned my life and ultimately provided it with its meaning.” – August Wilson (“Feed Your Mind, the Rest Will Follow”)
“...in ‘Fences’ they see a garbageman, a person they don’t really look at, although they see a garbageman every day. By looking at Troy’s life, white people find out that the content of this black garbageman’s life is affected by the same things - love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty. Recognizing that these things are as much part of his life as theirs can affect how they think about and deal with black people in their lives.”
Although Fences has a cast of seven, there are over twenty-seven community members referenced in the play. Using characters such as Mr. Rand, Brownie, Ms. Pearl, and Mr. Stawicki, Wilson’s ingeniously establishes a tangible picture of Pittsburgh’s Hill District and its inhabitants. Likewise, the ground on which the production of Fences stands is rich and collaborative. In addition to the design team, production staff, and Triad Stage’s consummate employees, Sergeant Porter generously offered his time and expertise as the military consultant. As always, I am grateful to the strength of the actors and the creative team for the opportunity to give voice to the multifaceted and diverse characters of Fences. Likewise, I am appreciative of you the audience, who have come to make this journey. As audiences view Triad Stage’s production of Fences, it is not by coincidence the opening night will mark the sixty-ninth year of the reintegration of African Americans in Major League Baseball. Nor is it by happenstance that April 27, 2016, would have marked August Wilson’s seventy-first birthday. As Triad Stage celebrates the work August Wilson has crafted, I encourage audiences to embrace their history while celebrating the value of discovering and honoring the world’s untold stories.
GREENSBORO
Inspiring a Century of Plays
APRIL 10MAY 1, 2016 by AUGUST WILSON
The Hill District:
August Wilson
Early Life & Influences
August Wilson (April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) authored Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Fences, Two Trains Running, Jitney, King Hedley II, and Radio Gulf. These works explore the heritage and experience of African-Americans, decade-by-decade, over the course of the twentieth century. His plays have been produced at regional theaters across the country and all over the world, as well as on Broadway. Mr. Wilson’s works garnered many awards including Pulitzer Prizes for Fences (1987); and for The Piano Lesson (1990); a Tony Award for Fences; Great Britain’s Oliver Award for Jitney; as well as eight New York Drama Critics Circle Awards for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fences, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson, Two Trains Running, Seven Guitars, Jitney, and Radio Gulf. Additionally, the cast recording of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom received a 1985 Grammy Award, and Mr. Wilson received a 1995 Emmy Award nomination for his screenplay adaptation of The Piano Lesson. Mr. Wilson’s early works included the one-act plays The Janitor, Recycle, The Coldest Day of the Year, Malcolm X, The Homecoming and the musical satire Black Bart and the Sacred Hills. Mr. Wilson received many fellowships and awards, including Rockefeller and Guggenheim Fellowships in Playwriting, the Whiting Writer’s Award, 2003 Heinz Award, was awarded a 1999 National Humanities Medal by the President of the United States, and received numerous honorary degrees from colleges and universities, as well as the only high school diploma ever issued by Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. He was an alumnus of New Dramatists, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a 1995 inductee into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and on October 16, 2005, Broadway renamed the theater located at 245 West 52nd Street – The August Wilson Theatre. Additionally, Mr. Wilson was posthumously inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2007. Mr. Wilson was born and raised in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, and lived in Seattle, Washington at the time of his death. He is immediately survived by his two daughters, Sakina Ansari and Azula Carmen, and his wife, costume designer Constanza Romero. (from Samuel French, Inc.)
“I believe in the American theatre. I believe in its power to inform about the human condition, its power to heal, its power to hold the mirror as ‘twere up to nature, its power to uncover the truths we wrestle from uncertain and sometimes unyielding realities. All of art is a search for ways of being, of living life more fully.” – August Wilson
Born Frederick August Kittle Jr. on April 27, 1945 in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania the man we would come to know as August Wilson was the son of a Black cleaning woman, Daisy Wilson, and a German immigrant, Frederick Kittle Sr. In the 1950s, Daisy and Frederick divorced. In 1957 Daisy married an African American man named David Bedford and he and Wilson became and remained very close. After the marriage, August and his family moved to the White working class neighborhood of Hazelwood. Tensions rose in this neighborhood and Wilson experienced the ugly truth of racism for the first time. Being the only African American at Central Catholic High School, he was the subject of bullying – bullying that got so bad at times that the principal would often send him home in a cab so as to avoid violence on his walk home. His family was also targeted, causing them to move out of their new house after bricks were thrown through their window. In 1960, after being accused of plagiarizing a 20-page paper on Napoleon I, Wilson dropped out of school. At the request of his mother, who wished he would graduate from college and become a lawyer, Wilson enrolled in two different schools – Connelly Trade School and Gladstone Public High – both of which he found not to be challenging or stimulating enough and at the age of fifteen, Wilson left formal education for good. Over the course of the next four years, Wilson spent the majority of his time in the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. The Negro section of this library had about 30 books and he voraciously read them all. He met Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and Langston Hughes, among others, in that library. These were the voices that inspired him to find his own, these were the words that made him want to write. August Wilson knew then that he wanted to be a writer and began writing poetry. His mother disagreed with his choices and in 1962 forced him to leave the family home. With no other options facing him, Wilson enlisted in the U.S. Army for a three-year stint but was discharged after only one year. As a civilian he began working menial labor jobs, working as a short order cook, dishwasher, porter and gardener. It was while working these jobs that he met the diverse tapestry people who would become the framework of the characters he would later write about in his Century Cycle Plays. In 1965 Frederick August Kittle Sr., Wilson’s father, died. Because of their strained relationship, Wilson no longer felt as if he could carry his father’s name and officially changed it – adopting his mother’s maiden name Wilson and dropping his father’s first name thus becoming August Wilson. 1965 also marked the year that he bought the $20 stolen typewriter and $3 secondhand record player that sparked his creativity and changed his writing style. He moved into a rooming house in the Hill District with a group of writers and painters, including Rob Penny and there he discovered the Blues. The Blues, including artists like Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson, one could argue, is the most influential piece in Wilson’s writing. He has said “I think the Blues is the best literature the Blacks have. It’s certainly at the bedrock of everything I do, because it’s the world and the people.” August Wilson, who died of cancer in 2005, is easily considered one of the greatest American playwrights. His distinct voice – poetic, musical, spiritual, mystical and true – has shaped the American theatre in an undeniable way. It is his pursuit of telling the African American experience, of giving a public voice to our private, universal happenings that we honor and cherish. − Kamilah Bush, Assistant Dramaturg