Dr. Mike DowningKutztown University of PA

March 25, 2009

I am the web master of AugustWilson.net.

August Wilson was an award-winning playwright who chronicled the African-American experience through a series of ten plays.

He was born Frederick August Kittel, Jr. on April 27, 1945 in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, PA. His father was a German immigrant named Frederick August Kittel and his mother was an African-American woman named Daisy Wilson.

Mr. Wilson is best known for 10 plays. Known as The Pittsburgh Cycle, each play is set in a different decade of the 20th Century, chronicling the African-American experience.

Nine of the ten plays are set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, near Wilson’s childhood home. The only exception is Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which is located in Chicago. 

Fullerton Street and Jitney! were both submitted to the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwright’s Conference. Both were sent back to Wilson.

  Wilson realized that Jitney! (in its original form)

“wasn’t big enough,” and Fullerton Street was, in Wilson’s own words, “epic and too unwieldy.” So he sat down and wrote Ma Rainey and sent it to the O’Neill Conference. They accepted it.

1904 - Gem of the Ocean (2003) [9] 1911 - Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1984) [4] 1927 - Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1982) [2] 1936 - The Piano Lesson (1986) [5] 1948 - Seven Guitars (1995) [7] 1957 - Fences (1983) [3] 1969 - Two Trains Running (1990) [6] 1977 - Jitney (1979) [1] 1985 - King Hedley II (2001) [8] 1997 - Radio Golf (2005) [10]

Over the years, Mr. Wilson has received several awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for Fences and The Piano Lesson, a Tony award for Fences, and several New York Drama Critics awards for Best Play, among many others.

Early in 2005, Mr. Wilson was diagnosed with liver cancer. He passed away on October 2 of that year. His legacy lives on, however, through his plays and the lives he touched.

Jitney takes place in 1977. The focus of the play is on unlicensed cab drivers in the city of Pittsburgh.

Despite its flaws, Jitney's is certainly important reading for anyone who strives to understand the collective contributions of this important playwright.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is set in a Chicago recording studio in early March 1927. Ma Rainey has taken a break from touring to record some songs for Sturdyvant’s studio.

  Throughout the play, Ma illustrates her

understanding of the fact that the white record producers only want to trap her voice in that little box and then they’re done with her.

Fences is set in 1957 and features the legendary Troy Maxson.

Troy was in the Negro Leagues but never got a chance to play in the Major Leagues because he got too old to play just as the Major Leagues began accepting black players.

Fences is quite similar to Death of a Salesman.

Joe Turner's Come and Gone is about a man named Herald Loomis and his daughter, Zonia. Herald is looking for his wife, Martha.

Bynum, the conjure man, casts a spell to re-unite mother and child.

Eventually, Martha Pentecost arrives. Mother and daughter are re-united.

The Piano Lesson is set in Pittsburgh in 1936, with all the action taking place in the house of Doaker Charles.

A 137-year-old, upright piano, decorated with totems in the manner of African sculpture, dominates the parlor.

In a restaurant across the street from West's Funeral Home and Lutz's Meat Market, West, Memphis, and Holloway discuss the local scene.

Holloway philosophizes that there is nothing in the world but love and death. The men discuss the lottery and the value of Memphis’ restaurant.

The play is basically about African Americans getting what is fair in a white-dominated culture.

Seven Guitars is set in 1948. The play begins and ends after the funeral of one of the main characters, showing events leading to the funeral in flashbacks.

The play's recurring theme is the African-American male's fight for his own humanity, self-understanding and self-acceptance in the face of personal and societal ills.

Set in 1985, King Hedley II tells the story of an ex-con in Pittsburgh trying to rebuild his life.

It's been described as one of Wilson's darkest, telling the tale of a man trying to save $10,000 by selling stolen refrigerators so that he can buy a video store.

As in all the plays in this cycle, Gem of the Ocean exudes an irony that demonstrates how it is almost impossible for poor African Americans to lead ethical lives in a society that is unwilling to grant them equal opportunities.

If black people commit crimes far in excess of those committed by white people, then it is largely because their backs are to the wall in an unjust society.

Radio Golf, August Wilson’s last play, is set in 1997. It is also the last play chronologically in his famous Pittsburgh Cycle, a series of ten dramas chronicling African-American life in twentieth-century America.

Radio Golf is Wilson’s most direct interrogation of his audience regarding what it means to be African American. He ultimately asks whether it is possible for black culture and heritage to be preserved when it is integrated into mainstream white society.

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the "Racial" Self. New York: Oxford UP, 1987.

Shannon, Sandra. “The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson. Washington, D.C.: Howard UP, 1995.

Wilson, August. Fences. New York: Penguin, 1986. ---. Joe Turner's Come and Gone. New York: Penguin,

1988. ---. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. New York: Penguin, 1985. ---. The Piano Lesson. New York: Penguin, 1990. ---. Two Trains Running. New York, Penguin, 1992.