August Wilson

August Wilson wrote the American Century Cycle — ten plays, one for each decade of the twentieth century, each set in a different period of the Black American experience. It is one of the most ambitious and accomplished achievements in the history of American theater. Wilson won two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, for Fences in 1987 and The Piano Lesson in 1990, and his work has been performed continuously on Broadway and in regional theaters for four decades.

Born Frederick August Kittel Jr. in Pittsburgh's Hill District in 1945, Wilson grew up in a two-room apartment with his mother and five siblings. He dropped out of school at 15 after a teacher accused him of plagiarism on a paper about Napoleon — the teacher couldn't believe a Black student had written it. Wilson educated himself at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, reading his way through the Black section of the library.

Wilson's plays — including Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and Two Trains Running — are populated by ordinary Black people living extraordinary inner lives. He insisted his plays be directed by Black directors and performed for Black audiences, not as exclusion but as affirmation. The August Wilson Theatre on Broadway, renamed in his honor in 2005, stands as a permanent monument to his legacy.