When did August Wilson write his first play?
Famed playwright August Wilson wrote his first play, Jitney, in 1979. Fences earned him a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award in 1987. Wilson won another Pulitzer Prize in 1990, for The Piano Lesson.
Who is August Wilson and why is he famous?
African American playwright August Wilson won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for his play 'Fences' and earned a second Pulitzer Prize for 'The Piano Lesson.' Who Was August Wilson? Famed playwright August Wilson wrote his first play, Jitney, in 1979. Fences earned him a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award in 1987.
What are some musicals by August Wilson?
Musicals / Plays August Wilson Plays List 1 Fences. Fences is a 1983 play by American playwright August Wilson. Set in the 1950s, it is the sixth in Wilson's ten-part "Pittsburgh Cycle". 2 Gem of the Ocean. Gem of the Ocean is a play by American playwright August Wilson. 3 Jitney. Jitney is a play in two acts by August Wilson. 4 King Hedley II.
Why did August Wilson write the piano lesson?
The Piano Lesson is a 1990 play by American playwright August Wilson. It is the fourth play in Wilson's The Pittsburgh Cycle. Wilson began writing this play by playing with the various answers regarding the possibility of "acquir [ing] a sense of self-worth by denying one's past". The Piano Lesson received the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
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How many plays did August Wilson write?
10 playsWilson wrote 10 plays, collectively known as "The Pittsburgh Cycle" or "Amerian Century Cycle," which explores 100 years of the African American experience.
What August Wilson wrote?
Throughout the 1980s, Wilson wrote the majority of his work including Jitney (1982), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984), Fences (1985), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1986), and The Piano Lesson (1987).
What are August Wilson's best plays?
Fences1985The Piano Lesson1987Jitney1982How I Learned What I Lea...2003Seven Guitars1994Gem of the Ocean2003August Wilson/Plays
What was August Wilson's first Broadway play?
In 1979, Wilson wrote Jitney, which he considered his first real play. Wilson received a fellowship from the Minneapolis Playwrights Center in 1980, and the following year, he married his second wife Judy Oliver.
Who wrote A Raisin in the Sun?
Lorraine HansberryA Raisin in the Sun / PlaywrightLorraine Vivian Hansberry was a playwright and writer. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. Wikipedia
Who wrote the play Fences?
August WilsonFences / PlaywrightFences is a 1983 play by American playwright August Wilson. Set in the 1950s, it is the sixth in Wilson's ten-part “Pittsburgh Cycle”. Like all of the “Pittsburgh” plays, Fences explores the evolving African-American experience and examines race relations, among other themes.
What is the order of August Wilson's plays?
August Wilson's 10-play cycle: scenes and synopsesJitney (1979) ... Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1982) ... Fences (1984) ... Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1984) ... The Piano Lesson (1986) ... Two Trains Running (1990) ... Seven Guitars (1995) ... King Hedley II (1991)More items...•
How many plays are in August Wilson cycle of plays?
August Wilson is most known for his Century Cycle (also called The Pittsburgh Cycle), a collection of ten plays that span across decades to document African American experiences in the 20th century.
Which August Wilson plays are movies?
Fences2016Ma Rainey's Black Bottom2020The Piano Lesson1995On Broadway2019The Naked Proof2003August Wilson/Movies
For Which play did August Wilson won a Pulitzer Prize?
Fences (1985)Wilson's best known plays are Fences (1985) (which won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award), The Piano Lesson (1990) (a Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and Joe Turner's Come and Gone.
Who was the first playwright to win consecutive Best Play Tony Awards?
Tony KushnerThe two-part, seven-hour epic about life, gay and straight, in the United States in the age of AIDS made Tony Kushner the first playwright ever to win successive Best Play Tony Awards, in 1993 and 1994.
Who is August Wilson and what is the best known for?
In just fifteen years, American playwright August Wilson has become one of the most important voices in modern theater. He has won acclaim from literary and theater critics for his plays, which portray the African American experience in the twentieth century, one decade at a time.
Why was August Wilson important?
In just fifteen years, American playwright August Wilson has become one of the most important voices in modern theater. He has won acclaim from literary and theater critics for his plays, which portray the African American experience in the twentieth century, one decade at a time.
Why did August Wilson write Fences?
Wilson took it upon himself the responsibility to write a play about black experiences in the United States for every decade of the 20th century. Fences is his play about blacks in the 1950s.
Why did August Wilson start writing?
Wilson devoted his career to dramatizing these tensions within the black community while at the same time upholding the dignity of the individuals as they struggled with their past. During the early 1990s, Wilson wrote Seven Guitars, a play that takes place during the post-World War II years.
When did August Wilson write Fences?
1985Fences is a 1985 play by American playwright August Wilson.
What year was Seven Guitars by August Wilson written?
Seven Guitars is a 1995 play by American playwright August Wilson. It focuses on seven African-American characters in the year 1948. The play begins and ends after the funeral of one of the main characters, showing events leading to the funeral in flashbacks. Seven Guitars represents the 1940s entry in Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle, a decade-by-decade anthology of African-American life in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the twentieth century; Wilson would revisit the stories of some of these characters in King Hedley II, set in the 1980s.... more
Who wrote Radio Golf?
Radio Golf. Radio Golf is a play by American playwright, August Wilson, the final installment in his ten-part series, The Pittsburgh Cycle. It was first performed in 2005 by the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut and had its Broadway premiere in 2007 at the Cort Theatre. It is Wilson's final work.... more.
What is Joe Turner's come and gone?
It is the second installment of his decade-by-decade chronicle of the African-American experience, The Pittsburgh Cycle. The play was first staged 1984 at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut and opened on Broadway on 27 March 1988 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre—running for 105 performances. Directed by Lloyd Richards, the cast included Delroy Lindo as Herald Loomis and television and movie star Angela Bassett, as Loomis's wife, Martha.... more
Who wrote King Hedley II?
King Hedley II is a play by American playwright August Wilson, the eighth in his ten-part series, The Pittsburgh Cycle. The play ran on Broadway in 2001 and was revived Off-Broadway in 2007.... more
Who wrote the piano lesson?
The Piano Lesson. The Piano Lesson is a 1990 play by American playwright August Wilson. It is the fourth play in Wilson's The Pittsburgh Cycle. Wilson began writing this play by playing with the various answers regarding the possibility of "acquir [ing] a sense of self-worth by denying one's past".
Who wrote the play Gem of the Ocean?
Gem of the Ocean is a play by American playwright August Wilson. It is the first installment of his decade-by-decade, ten-play chronicle, The Pittsburgh Cycle, dramatizing the African-American experience in the twentieth century.... more
What is Ma Rainey's Black Bottom about?
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is a 1982 play - one of the ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle by August Wilson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright - that chronicles the twentieth century African American experience. The play is set in Chicago in the 1920s, and deals with issues of race, art, religion and the historic exploitation ...
When was August Wilson's Three Plays published?
A collection of Wilson's work, entitled Three Plays by August Wilson, was published in book form in 1991. The following year brought the Broadway premiere of Two Trains Running.
Who Was August Wilson?
Famed playwright August Wilson wrote his first play, Jitney, in 1979. Fences earned him a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award in 1987. Wilson won another Pulitzer Prize in 1990, for The Piano Lesson. In 1996, Seven Guitars premiered on the Broadway stage, followed by King Hedley II in 2001 and Gem of the Ocean in 2004. Wilson died on October 2, 2005, in Seattle, Washington.
What is Arthur Miller's most famous play?
His best-known plays include 'All My Sons,' 'The Crucible' and the Pulitzer Prize-winning 'Death of a Salesman.'
How did Wilson die?
Wilson died of liver cancer on October 2, 2005, in Seattle, Washington. His new play, Radio Golf, had opened in Los Angeles, California, just a few months earlier.
What is August Wilson's pen name?
Following his father's death in 1965, a 20-year-old Wilson adopted the pen name "August Wilson" — reportedly an homage to his mother — and declared himself a poet. In 1968, Wilson and a friend, Rob Penny, co-founded the Black Horizon Theater.
What was Wilson's first play?
Plays: 'Fences, 'The Pittsburgh Cycle,' 'The Piano Lesson'. Wilson wrote his first notable play in 1979, Jitney, for which he earned a fellowship at the Minneapolis Playwright Center. The following year, his new play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, was accepted at the Eugene O'Neill Playwright's Conference. The year 1982 was particularly fruitful ...
When did Joe Turner come out on Broadway?
Joe Turner, the second part of the cycle, opened on Broadway in 1988. He took home another Pulitzer Prize in 1990, this time for The Piano Lesson, following its Broadway premiere. A collection of Wilson's work, entitled Three Plays by August Wilson, was published in book form in 1991.
How many plays has August Wilson written?
To date, Wilson has written eight of the plays he will include in his ten-play series. The eighth, King Hedley II, is scheduled to premiere on December 15 in Wilson's ...
When did Wilson start writing plays?
Originally a poet and short-story writer, Wilson's first experience with theater wasn't until 1968, when he and a friend started Black Horizons Theatre Company in Pittsburgh. There, Wilson learned to direct plays, but still didn't consider writing them. It wasn't until 1977 that he converted some of his poems into a play. Called Black Bart and the Sacred Hills, the production was a success, but Wilson doesn't count that play as part of his playwriting career. Instead, he says, his career began in 1979 with his work on Jitney.
What is the process of writing the last two plays in the cycle?
The process of writing these plays, Wilson says, will begin with a single line of dialog that surfaces from his creative depths. Gradually, characters will begin to reveal themselves and Wilson will come to know them and the story they wish to tell.
What was the best play of the year in 1991?
Two Trains Running was cited as the best American Play of 1991-92, and Seven Guitars was recognized as the best new play in 1995-96. August Wilson was taking the theater world by storm. In addition to these creative efforts, Wilson sought to strengthen and promote African American theatre.
When did Wilson convene a conference on African American theater?
Following a public debate with critic/producer Robert Brustein in January 1997 in New York City concerning race, culture and theatre, Wilson convened a conference on African American Theater at Dartmouth in 1998. As a result of that meeting, the African Grove Institute of Arts was born as a home for African American theatre, ...
Where did Wilson grow up?
He grew up in Pittsburgh's ethnically diverse Hill District, where he was surrounded by the sounds, sights and struggles of urban African American life that would later fuel his creative efforts.
When did Wilson write Fences?
In 1983, Wilson wrote Fences, which opened on Broadway in 1987 and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for best play of the year. At this point, having already written three plays, each set in a different decade of the twentieth century, Wilson set for himself the task ...
Where did Wilson write his plays?
He also published poetry in such journals as Black World (1971) and Black Lines (1972). In 1978 Wilson moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, and in the early 1980s he wrote several plays, including Jitney, which was first produced in 1982.
What was Wilson's first play?
Focused on cab drivers in the 1970s, it underwent subsequent revisions as part of his historical cycle; it was published in 2000. His first major play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, opened on Broadway in 1984 and was a critical and financial success. Set in Chicago in 1927, the play centres on a verbally abusive blues singer, her fellow Black musicians, and their white manager; it was later made into a movie (2020). Fences, first produced in 1985 and published in 1986, is about a conflict between a father and his son in the 1950s; it received a Tony Award for best play, and a film adaptation was released in 2016.
What is the play about the lives of residents of a boardinghouse in 1911?
Wilson’s chronicle of the Black American experience continued with Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, first produced in 1986, a play about the lives of residents of a boardinghouse in 1911, and The Piano Lesson, first produced in 1987, which is set in the 1930s and explores a family’s ambivalence about selling an heirloom; it was adapted for television in 1995. The action of Two Trains Running, first produced in 1990, takes place in a coffeehouse in the 1960s. Seven Guitars, first produced in 1995 as the seventh play of the cycle, is set among a group of friends who reunite in 1948 following the death of a local blues guitarist.
What awards did August Wilson receive?
Wilson received numerous honours during his career, including seven New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for best play. He also held Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships. Shortly after his death, the Virginia Theater on Broadway was renamed in his honour. The August Wilson Center for African American Culture opened in Pittsburgh in 2009.
What is the theme of Wilson's plays?
Music, particularly jazz and blues, is a recurrent theme in Wilson’s works, and its cadence is echoed in the lyrical, vernacular nature of his dialogue. Wilson received numerous honours during his career, including seven New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for best play.
Why did Wilson quit school?
Wilson and his family were the target of racial threats in Hazelwood, and he quit school at age 15 after being accused of having plagiarized a paper. He turned to self-education, reading intensively in a public library and returning to the Hill District to learn from residents there.
Where did Wilson grow up?
Wilson grew up in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, a lively poor neighbourhood that became the setting for most of his plays. Together with five siblings, he was raised by his mother, Daisy Wilson, after his father, Frederick August Kittel, left her and their children. Daisy Wilson later remarried, and in 1958 the family moved to a suburb of Pittsburgh.
What was August Wilson's last play?
Radio Golf, Wilson’s last play in the Century Cycle, premieres at the Yale Repertory Theatre. 2005. In June, August Wilson is diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and dies Sunday, October 2, in a Seattle hospital. His funeral service is held at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Pittsburgh.
What is the name of the musical by Wilson?
Wilson writes a western musical play, Black Bart and the Sacred Hills.
Why did Frederick August Kittel change his name?
To honor his mother, Frederick August Kittel changes his name to August Wilson. His biological father dies.
What library gave Wilson his first high school diploma?
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh awards Wilson its first ever high school diploma.
What did Wilson discover?
Wilson works a variety of jobs and begins writing poetry. He purchases his first typewriter and discovers Bessie Smith and the blues.
What grade is Wilson in?
Now a tenth-grader, Wilson is assigned an essay on a historical figure. After being accused of plagiarizing his paper on Napoleon Bonaparte, the 15-year-old drops out of Gladstone High. He becomes a voracious reader and educates himself by spending his days at the nearby Carnegie Library.
Where is Wilson teaching?
Wilson teaches playwriting at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.