peacafe.pages.dev

August wilson parents

    •

August Wilson

American playwright (1945–2005)

This article is about the late-20th-century writer. For the late-19th-century writer Augusta J. Evans Wilson, see Augusta Wilson. For the United States Navy sailor, see August Wilson (Medal of Honor).

August Wilson (né Frederick August Kittel Jr.; April 27, 1945 – October 2, 2005) was an American playwright. He has been referred to as the "theater's poet of Black America".[1] He is best known for a series of 10 plays, collectively called The Pittsburgh Cycle (or The Century Cycle), which chronicle the experiences and heritage of the African-American community in the 20th century. Plays in the series include Fences (1987) and The Piano Lesson (1990), each of which won Wilson the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984) and Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1988). In 2006, Wilson was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Other themes range from the systemic and historical exploitation of African Americans, race relations, identity, migration, and racial discrimination. V

    •

August Wilson Books and Play Memorabilia

Biography


Born Frederick August Kittel, Jr in Pittsburgh in 1945, as the fourth of seven children, August Wilson grew up in the impoverished Bedford Avenue area of the city. The family moved from there when his mother re-married and Wilson attended school; he dropped out at 16 and focussed on working in menial jobs while fostering his burgeoning love of the written word with trips to the Carnegie Library. Reading the works of Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison embedded a desire within the teenage Wilson to become a writer, though his mother wanted him to pursue a career in law. Disagreements over this decision led to Wilson leaving the family home and he intended to spend three years in the army, but he left after a year and returned to Pittsburgh to work in various jobs.


After his father’s death in 1965, Frederick Kittel Jr became August Wilson, a decision made to honour his mother. The late sixties saw Wilson become heavily influenced by Malcolm X and the Blues and he converted to Islam to ensure the survival of his marriage to Brenda

    •

August Wilson chronicled the African-American experience in the 20th century in a series of plays that stand as a landmark in the history of black culture, of American literature and of theater. $$PLAIN_TEXT_PREVIEW$$

Celebrating the birth & legacy of

“I remain fascinated by the idea of an audience as a community of people who gather willingly to bear witness. A novelist writes a novel and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time. I find that thrilling.”

— August Wilson

A two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, playwright August Wilson chronicled the African-American experience in the 20th century in a series of plays that stand as a landmark in the history of black culture, of American literature and of Broadway theater.   He has been called Theater’s Poet of Black America.