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August Wilson: Cultural Power and the Case for Black
Theater
Revolutionary Worker #893, February 9, 1997
From the RW Arts Correspondent
NEW YORK JANUARY 27: On an icy evening over 1,500 people vied for tickets at
New York City's Town Hall to hear a debate on "Cultural Power." August Wilson – the
Black playwright who is one of the most celebrated writers in the U.S. today (author of
"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," "Fences", "The Piano Lesson," "Seven Guitars" among
many other plays) – faced off with Robert Brustein – the theatre director and critic who
has held top posts at Yale Drama School and as artistic director for the American
Repertory Theatre at Harvard's Loeb Theatre and writes for the neo-conservative
magazine New Republic. The person who pulled together this important debate and
moderated it was Anna Deveare Smith, an actor known for weaving a tapestry of
provocative portrayals of the participants in some of the great political events of our time,
like the L.A. Rebellion.
At issue was the question: Should significant resources of this society go to support and
develop major Black theatres – where Black artists, actors, writers and directors can
develop theatre "by, for, about, and near" Black people (to cite the criteria first laid out in
1926 by the revolutionary nationalist W.E.B. DuBois)?
Wilson is fighting for this position. Is he right?
Yes. That is our short article.
*****
But Wilson's proposal has touched off a storm of controversy in different quarters.
Wilson has been accused of being "separatist" and criticized for politicizing theatre. And
it has also revealed a situation of deep inequality in the arts.
At the very time that important theatre works from Black artists like Wilson's own plays
and extraordinary productions like "Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk" are winning
awards on Broadway – indicating a broad and deep interest in such works – the
independent Black theatres are languishing, starving for lack of resources.
In June 1966 Wilson rocked the theatre world by addressing the problem in a major
speech, "The Ground on Which I Stand," at the Theatre Communications Group National
Conference at Princeton University. Describing himself as one who was fired in the kiln
of the Black Power movement of the '60s, Wilson made a deep and impassioned
argument for Black theatres where the culture of Black people can flower. "The ideas of
self-determination, self-respect and self-defense that governed my life in the '60s I find
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just as valid and self-urging in 1996.... Those who would deny black Americans their
culture would also deny them their history and the inherent values that are a part of all
human life."
Wilson pointed out that, "In terms of economics and privilege, one significant fact affects
us all in the American theatre: of the 66 LORT theatres [LORT = League of Regional
Theatres, an organization made up of major professional not-for-profit theatres across the
country--RW], there is only one that can be considered black. From this it could be
falsely assumed that there aren't sufficient numbers of blacks working in the American
theatre to sustain and support more theatres. If you do not know, I will tell you that black
theatre in America is alive.. it is vibrant... it is vital... it just isn't funded."
As this controversy has unfolded, it has come to light that in recent years, while some
funds have gone to regional theatres for the specific purpose of "diversifying their
audiences," Black, Latino, and Asian theatres have suffered.
For example, in 1991, as government arts funding was getting drastically cut in the fallout from the censorship wars, one private funding agency, the Lila Wallace-Readers
Digest Fund allocated $25 million mainly to the larger regional theatres to produce plays
by Black, Latino, Native American and Asian American artists.
The effects of these grants have been contradictory. On the positive side, works by Black
artists and others have been produced at these venues. And the culture of the oppressed
has been shared with the largely white audiences who frequent these theatres--often for
the first time.
But at the same time, Black theatres have not gotten anywhere near the kind of funding
that these theatres, which mainly feature Euro-American culture, have received to do
Black plays. So Black theatres have gone under, few new theatres have arisen. And there
has been a bleeding of Black playwrights and actors out of Black theatres and into these
other venues. Most Black theatres cannot afford to pay their actors enough to even
qualify to be part of the regional theatre association, LORT, so they're not even in the
running for many of the grants.
In many ways, this situation is just another indictment of the whole social set-up that is
founded on national oppression.
A key issue here is how the resources of this society are allocated and how inequality is
perpetuated in the cultural arena. It is a stunning exposure of how deep national
oppression runs in the U.S. today when one takes a look at just how little of society's
resources go towards Black arts and other oppressed nationalities. The vast amount of
resources flow to venues where the stage is dominated by plays that reflect the history,
experience, and culture of European Americans. And the result is that – despite many
good intentions – inequality persists and deepens.
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Wilson also criticizes the content of some works supported by these grants as a form of
"cultural imperialism" – where the casting of Black actors in roles originally written for
European Americans has become a substitute for really developing Black theatre –
especially new works. He argues that casting Black actors in plays "conceived for white
actors as an investigation of the human condition through the specifics of white culture is
to deny us our own humanity, our own history, and the need to make our own
investigations from the cultural ground on which we stand as black Americans. It is an
assault on our presence, our difficult but honorable history in America; it is an insult to
our intelligence, our playwrights, and our many and varied contributions to the society
and the world at large....
"In an effort to spare us the burden of being `affected by an undesirable condition' and as
a gesture of benevolence, many whites (like the proponents of colorblind casting) say,
`Oh, I don't see color.' We want you to see us. We are black and beautiful.... We are not
ashamed, and do not need you to be ashamed for us. Nor do we need the recognition of
our blackness to be couched in abstract phrases like `artist of color.' Who are you talking
about? A Japanese artist? An Eskimo? A Filipino? A Mexican? A Cambodian? A
Nigerian? An African American? Are we to suppose that if you put a white person on one
side of the scale and the rest of humanity lumped together as nondescript `people of color'
on the other, that it would balance out? That whites carry that much spiritual weight? We
reject that. We are unique, and we are specific."
*****
The debate at Town Hall brought Wilson face to face with his longtime opponent Robert
Brustein.
Brustein opened the debate by saying that his difference with Wilson is not so much
about race but is a "philosophical dispute over the basic function of dramatic art." He
opposed what he calls "ideological art" and denied that art can change society – to which
Wilson correctly retorted, "Art changes individuals and individuals change society. All
art has to serve the politics of someone..."
But for all Brustein's talk about the pre-eminence of "artistic criteria" he himself has
clearly used "sociological criteria" in making his own assessment of Wilson's art: "...by
choosing to chronicle the oppression of black people through each of the decades, Wilson
has fallen into a monotonous tone of victimization..." Here Brustein reveals his bias both
in terms of sociological and artistic criteria. Would Brustein accuse Shakespeare of
writing a boring series of plays on the kings of England?
Those who have come to know Wilson's rich range of characters, the beauty and power
of his language, and his ability to transport and enlighten know that he definitely meets
the criteria that, as Mao said, while life is the source of art, art is "higher than life." In a
1992 article in the New York Times, Wilson described the path which led him to the
"series of plays that could be laid end on end to comprise a dramatic tracing of the black
American odyssey through the 20th century.... Since I was not a historian but a writer of
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fiction, I saw as my task the invention of characters. These personal histories would not
only represent the culture but illuminate the historical context both of the period in which
the play is set and the continuum of black life in America that stretches back to the early
17th century."
Brustein also accuses Wilson of "separatism" for making the claim that Black theatre arts
cannot fully develop in the context of the current line-up of regional theatres.
At the TCB convention Wilson said: "We cannot develop our playwrights with the
meager resources at our disposal. Why is it difficult to imagine nine black theatres but not
66 white ones? Without theatres we cannot develop our talents, then everyone suffers:
our writers; the theatre; the audience." At the debate he added, "...Imagine if the Black
artist could have Black theatres in which to practice and develop their craft, places where
your visitors' pass does not expire, as it does for us now, usually on March 1 right after
Black History month."
Once again, as in the debates over affirmative action and more recently ebonics, the issue
of "color-blindness" and merit--in this case "artistic standards"--have been raised to deny
the oppression of Black people and dismiss the just demands for equality.
In an article called "Subsidized Separatism," Brustein wrote: "Funding agencies have
started substituting sociological criteria for aesthetic criteria in their grant procedures,
including that `elitist' notions like quality and excellence are no longer functional."
Wilson: "To suggest that funding agencies are rewarding inferior work by pursuing
sociological criteria only serves to call into question the tremendous outpouring of plays
by white playwrights who benefit from funding given to the 66 LORT theatres.
"Are those theatres funded on sociological or artistic criteria? Do we have 66 excellent
theatres? Or do those theatres benefit from the sociological advantage that they are run by
whites and cater largely to white audiences?
"The truth is that often where there are aesthetic criteria of excellence, there are also
sociological criteria that have traditionally excluded Blacks. I say raise the standards and
remove the sociological consideration of race as privilege, and we will meet you at the
crossroads, in equal numbers, prepared to do the work of extending and developing the
common ground of the American theatre."
At Town Hall this exchange, which has developed in the pages of American Theatre
magazine, the New Republic and elsewhere, got a bit more pointed:
Wilson to Brustein: Is your theatre (American Repertory Theatre) separate from the
Black community in Boston?
Brustein: What do you mean, it does all kinds of theatre.
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Wilson: Is it near the Black community?
Brustein: No.
Wilson: Does it get grants? Isn't that "subsidized separatism"?
*****
We revolutionaries are first and foremost internationalists, and in this country this means
that we "train the masses of all nationalities in a self-determinationist spirit, to take up the
struggle in support of the long-denied and suppressed demands of oppressed people for
liberation and equality as an integral and decisive aspect of the proletarian revolution," as
RCP Chairman Bob Avakian has said.
Black people need space and support to develop their culture, and everyone will benefit
from this. Such a flowering of Black theatre would certainly develop with different
trends--revolutionary, non-revolutionary, proletarian, bourgeois, traditional,
experimental, nationalist and internationalist. And for our part, we encourage the
revolutionary, the proletarian and internationalist trends--as well as collaboration with
and attendance of people of all nationalities.
At the same time, we work for the development of proletarian art, which through many
different forms reflects--as art--the outlook and interests of the multinational proletariat
and contributes as art to our revolutionary goals.
One cannot speak of equality and inclusion unless Black people, and other oppressed
nationalities, have the chance to develop their culture in an environment free from the
economic, political and social domination of European-American culture. And the current
debate only underscores once again that to achieve such equality would require a
fundamental and revolutionary recasting of the way that resources and priorities are
determined. While people must fight for such equality in every arena today, we need to
see that the monopoly capitalist system is perpetuating and reinventing the conditions
where the culture of Black people, and other oppressed nationalities, remains suppressed.
*****
Typically, the charge of hypocrisy has greeted Wilson's arguments from various quarters,
since Wilson's own works have appeared in major regional theatres and on Broadway
where they have received many awards. This is an old story: the success of a few Black
artists and intellectuals is used as an argument against Black people in general.
Wilson's arrival on Broadway was a struggle against all odds. Kicked out of high school,
Wilson taught himself the playwrighting craft, and fought together with Lloyd Richards,
the Black director who was at Yale in late 80s, to carve out a space for this Black theatre.
Now Wilson is fighting to expand this space in a way that would benefit other Black
theatre artists.
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And why can't there be many August Wilsons on Broadway and in multinational venues-as well as in major Black theatres?! Certainly Wilson is not arguing that Black artists and
Black theatre should not share all kinds of stages. He is clear on this: "We have sought to
be included from the beginning. We are fighting now to be included in the making of
theatre in America." But there should also be a space for developing Black theatre arts
specifically.
Isn't it the responsibility of everyone who yearns for justice and equality to support such
endeavors? To accuse Wilson of separatism, and then to suggest as Brustein did the other
night that if Wilson is so interested in developing Black theatre why doesn't he start one
of his own, or open one of his plays in a Black theatre--as if the whole burden of
centuries of slavery and national oppression which has produced this outrageous situation
with Black theatre should be laid at the feet of August Wilson, personally, to solve--these
are the kinds of comments that just make Black people want to have a separate country!
All those who celebrate and welcome the works of August Wilson in the theatre--on
whatever stage--should see not only the justness of his call, but also the benefit to
everyone. At the same time, artists of all nationalities need to fight for the culture of the
oppressed to be represented in all arenas.
This debate has raised many questions. Many artists, including radical Black artists, see
the great need for a Black theatre but do not want to see all the different nationalities just
head off to their national tents, never to mix it up. Most oppressed nationality people are
part of the multinational proletariat. And despite the ceaseless efforts of the power
structure to pit us against each other, people are searching for unity--based on respect and
equality. This finds expression in the arts with such phenomenon as rappers toasting in
Spanish to the beat of reggae and salsa and funk.
Many progressive artists are rightfully concerned that Wilson has one-sidely rejected
non-traditional casting. While Wilson makes an insightful critique of the erroneous
concept of "color blindness" in a society so marked by inequality, he seems to have onesidely rejected the whole idea of people experimenting with gender and nationality in
casting. Clearly there are situations where casting against nationality can raise
provocative questions about social barriers. It can also mock the oppressed and serve to
perpetuate those barriers, as in the casting of a white actor in the role of a Vietnamese in
Broadway's "Miss Saigon." But there are artists who are trying do something positive
with non-traditional casting, and playing with such conventions can certainly have a
positive role.
Revolutionary-minded Black theatre artists have raised questions about just what
Wilson's vision of Black theatre would encompass, and there are many other matters that
we could not do justice to in this article.
The important thing is the debate is on; August Wilson has called attention to a great
inequality in the arts and throughout society. And it might just take a revolution to really
address the problem.
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This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
http://rwor.org
Write: Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654
Phone: 773-227-4066 Fax: 773-227-4497
(The RW Online does not currently communicate via email.)
_______________________________________________________
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The Big Event: Wilson vs. Brustein At Town Hall
28 Jan 1997
Playwright August Wilson and director Robert Brustein took their ongoing debate about race in
American theatre to the stage of New York's Town Hall Theatre Jan. 27 for a two and a half
hour faceoff moderated by another playwright, Anna Deavere Smith.
Playwright August Wilson and director Robert Brustein took their ongoing debate about race in
American theatre to the stage of New York's Town Hall Theatre Jan. 27 for a two and a half
hour faceoff moderated by another playwright, Anna Deavere Smith.
The men explored some of the sorest spots in the relations between black and white America,
and how the cultural and political power is managed.
"James Baldwin," Smith began, "once wrote of the illusion of safety. We create the illusion to
feel safe, but we also know the safety is just an illusion." Making clear that race would lie at
the heart of the Wilson/Brustein debate, Smith also referred to Louis Farrakhan's speech at
the Million Man March on Washington DC, at which he chided the Constitution's phrase, "in
order to form a more perfect union." "`If it's perfect,'" Smith quoted, "`how can it be more?'"
"We are shaky," Smith admitted, yet she expressed hope that the discussion between the
Wilson, who yearns for the creation of more specifically black theatre, and Brustein, who views
such thinking as a idea that undermines a basic artistic aesthetic, would find common ground
in their words and expressions. "Both men speak in metaphors," Smith said, "and metaphor is,
perhaps, fatter than argument."
Sustained applause greeted Brustein and Wilson, who, pro forma, emerged from opposite
sides of the wide stage. The debate's structure gave each 15-20 minutes for his (written)
thesis, "On Cultural Power," followed by a 30-minute discussion with Smith. During the
intermission, audience members could write down questions that Smith would ask the
gentlemen during the evening's second part.
To Wilson, Pulitzer-winning author of Fences and The Piano Lesson, whose plays employ
almost uniformly black characters, non traditional casting smacks of assimilation, a subsuming
of one's personal heritage to the demands of the dominant culture. "I would not support the
idea of black people doing Chekhov," Wilson would explain in the second half debate -- nor
does he condone men playing women and vice versa.
The author of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Joe Turner's Come and Gone and Seven Guitars
made clear with his counter-argument that America's social system, and not an idealized,
culturally unspecific (e.g., white and Western) definition of "art," was at the heart of his
argument. "My ancestors came over in chains, on slave ships. Inside all blacks is at least one
heartbeat that beats with the blood of Africa."
"This argument," began Brustein, founding director of Yale Rep and American Repertory
Theatre, "boils down to a philosophic dispute about the basic function of dramatic art."
According to Brustein, Wilson's position on the creation of purely "black" theatre, has a
political motive - a way of giving African-Americans more power in the entertainment industry,
and by extension, in America. Wilson, argued Brustein, may think a separately functioning
black culture will lead to inclusion, but isolation and hostility would be the real end-products.
"Almost all efforts to improve human conditions through a political system have been sour
ones," said Brustein. "Ionesco once said, `all revolutions burn the libraries of Alexandria.'
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Instead we must, as Milan Kundera once wrote, `speak the truth to power.'" Brustein then
defined "truth" as devotion to a human being, rather than to a cause.
One of the more surprising aspects of the Brustein/Wilson conflict, which began when Wilson
responded, publicly (at a Theatre Communications Group conference), to opinions Brustein
expressed in his column in "The Nation," is that Wilson is the one who opposes non-traditional
casting, that is, casting plays without worrying whether the race and/or sex of the actor
corresponds to that of the character. Answering Wilson's charge that he has racist tendencies,
Brustein told the audience that he has championed color-blind casting at both Yale Rep and
American Rep. Brustein then read off a long list of actors, directors and playwrights he's
employed in his 30-year career as artistic director (to some audience hisses). "We fought
against the [Samuel] Beckett estate to have black actors in Endgame. And in all the stagings
we've had of my own Shlemiel The First, the best Shlemiel we ever had was a Gentile, and the
best Jewish wife was played by a black woman."
Wilson used this opening to explain why blacks and whites "cannot share the same value
system. The dominant culture is not our culture. When a little Japanese child is handed a
Samurai doll before he goes to sleep, that's a connection to his heritage. You don't take the
doll away and replace it with a G.I. Joe. With black theatre, we wish to champion our own
values, our own culture."
Wilson argued, "We are a society that suffers from a failure of the imagination, and we don't
admit to having a problem . . . It's like office buildings that are superstitious about the number
'13,' so the elevator goes from the 12th floor to the 14th floor. But everybody knows, there's
something over 12 . . . Two years ago, Time Magazine ran a piece about the 'renaissance' of
black art in America. The idea of that article was that black art is finally making it because it
moved out of the community into the mainstream. The art transcended its blackness. As if
writing for a black audience were somehow a lesser profession. You don't ever hear people
asking David Mamet or Terrence McNally, `hey, how come you only write plays for white
people?' "
Brustein zinged Wilson in response, saying, "August Wilson is one of the greatest minds . . . of
the 17th century. You may call yourself African, but Wole Soyinka wouldn't agree with that.
You're an American, like I'm an American. My parents came over from Poland, I wouldn't call
myself Polish."
"But that's you," replied Wilson. "I came from slavery, my father and mother, their parents . .
. When you look at me, that is what you see."
Moderator Smith -- famous as author and performer in Fires In The Mirror and Twilight: Los
Angeles, 1992 -- then brought up the issue of Ebonics, a black street "language" that some
educators are considering recognizing as a legitimate dialect, in order to help teach kids who
use it proper English as well. Brustein viewed Ebonics as a natural extension of Wilson's
separatist philosophies, thus fostering exclusion of other cultures; Wilson countered that
Ebonics grows out of the community and should be respected and dealt with as such.
Ultimately, as all theatre arguments do, this one got around to money. Both Wilson and
Brustein criticized how subsidies are handed out, with Wilson noting that, "the government will
pay $500 million for a bomber, and only $100 million for the arts. And black art is not funded
the way white art is. Where are the black theatres?" Brustein then bemoaned the cuts in grant
and foundation money for his own A.R.T., and said that he certainly mourned the loss of the
New Federal Theatre and the Negro Ensemble Company.
"But why do you need Broadway?" Brustein charged, "you could help black theatres by giving
them one of your premieres. Or you could start one."
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"I'm a playwright, I'm not a producer," Wilson replied. "And what black theatres are there?"
Although Wilson champions the idea of theatre by and for black audiences, he refused to
comment on the so-called "chitlin' circuit," of plays such as Mama, I Want To Sing and The
Beauty Shop, mentioned by Smith.
The second act audience Q&A led to some lively discussions about the state of race in current
theatre. While Wilson praised the works of Lloyd Richards and George C. Wolfe (both of whom
were in the audience), Brustein objected, on a certain level, to the content of Bring In `Da
Noise, Bring In `Da Funk, for it still promotes the stereotype of blacks as slaves and victims
by using tap dance -- ironically, one of the few fields where black were not excluded and
marginalized.
Also spotting in the audience: columnist Frank Rich, Rent director Michael Greif, critic John
Simon, newsman Mike Wallace, actress Helen Mirren, director George C. Wolfe, and
playwrights Paul Rudnick and John Guare.
Ultimately, Wilson and Brustein's positions were best expressed by comparisons made to, of
all people, Plato and Aristotle, who were seen as opposite sides of the politics/art issue. Asked
if there is a new, "third" position, Brustein cited Brecht and Ibsen as presenting an ambiguous
world view. "The Good Person Of Sezchuan ends with the word `help,' yet Brecht knows that
art doesn't change society."
Wilson replied, "Art changes people who change society."
Applause and handshakes capped this heady if unresolved evening of discourse, which John
Sullivan, executive director and publisher for Theatre Communications Group, called "an
exploration of the political and aesthetic underpinnings of that melange we call American
culture."
The event began three hours earlier with a near free-for-all outside the Town Hall doors. Rain
and sleet pushed the crowd unusually close to the theatre. Dozens of people needing to pick
up their reserved tickets pushed to get in through the same doors that ticket-holders needed
to exit. The resulting stand-still resulted in angry words, exasperation, confusion, and an
audience soaked with freezing rain. The discussion, held in the over heated, but acoustically
good confines of Town Hall, began a half hour after the scheduled starting time.
For more background on the big debate, please see Playbill On Line's article, Wilson and
Brustein Will Debate Race in Theatre Jan. 27."
--By David Lefkowitz
_____________________________________________________________
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June 11, 2006
Bridges or Fences: Diversity on the American Stage
The English Department at Carnegie Mellon University and Unseam'd
Shakespeare Company (Pittsburgh, Pa) with the participation of the August
Wilson Center for African American Culture invite academics, artists and
graduate students to participate in a day-long symposium: Bridges or Fences:
Diversity on the American Stage (Re-engaging the Wilson-Brustein Debates)
June 24, 2006
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, Pa
Deadline extended to 06/12/2006
submit to: [email protected]
It has been a decade since playwright August Wilson's address during the Theatre
Communications Group conference sparked a debate with Robert Brustein,
founding director of Yale and American Repertory Theatres. Engaged from a
podium at Princeton, the debate raged in the pages of American Theatre, and
finally was staged at New York's Town Hall (moderated by actress/activist Anna
Deveare Smith). This debate placed in stark relief the politics of representation
that play out on stages across America, and posed challenging questions about
diversity, democracy and the possibilities of American theatre to support either.
On June 24, 2006 a day-long symposium will be convened to address the central
question of the Wilson-Brustein debate:
What does/can/should diversity look like on the stage?
Presented in conjunction with the Unseam'd Shakespeare Company's production
of Othello: Noir, the symposium asks participants to re-engage the WilsonBrustein debate or its concerns, welcomes them to engage in a discussion with
artists, artistic directors, and academics from Pittsburgh's arts community, and
invites them to attend a production that engages these concerns in performance.
The day will include presentations by academics and artists, live performances, a
community picnic, and conclude with a community conversation among
symposium attendees and the directors from Pittsburgh's professional,
nonprofessional, small and large theatre companies.
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In addition to re-engaging the Wilson-Brustein debates, the symposium takes
up a conversation convened in 2004 by the August Wilson Center for African
American Culture in Pittsburgh, Pa. This conversation--"Diversity Revisited,"
convened during the National Performing Arts Presenters Conference-- included
many arts organizations from Pittsburgh in a conversation with a decidedly
national focus on the question of diversity in the performing arts generally.
During the symposium on June 24, those involved in the "Diversity Revisited"
conversation have been invited to continue their conversation. Thus, the
symposium presents the opportunity to continue the work started in 2004 while
at the same time advancing and expanding the conversation. The symposium will
involve more local stakeholders and provide them the opportunity to engage the
symposium participants in conversation with a focus on the specific issues related
to diversity initiatives in theatre and dance performance.
Please submit an abstract (250 words) or paper addressing the following (or
related questions):
If American theatre changed in response to the Wilson-Brustein debates,
did it do so in response to or rejection of the positions of Wilson and Brustein?
What do performance theory, cultural studies, and theatre scholarship have
to say about the possibilities for diversity on the American stage?
What is at stake in practices of “color-blind” casting? What is the difference
between colorblind and multicultural casting? How do ideas about audiences and
“what they want” shape our decisions about casting?What authority does the text
have when it comes to casting? Are their other spaces of representation outside
multicultural or colorblind casting? If theatre provides a “liminal” space of
possibility, what does the Wilson-Brustein debate suggest about the boundaries
of this liminal space? How do the above questions change when we are
discussing the casting oftheatrical classics from the European tradition?
. . . When we are discussing commercial vs. non-profit, big or smal ltheatres?
. . . When we are discussing theatre training?
The Symposium:
8:30 Welcome Reception
9:30-10:45: Session 1
11:00-12:15: Diversity in Practice (artists speak on how notions of diversity
influence or affect their practice)
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Lunch
1:15-2:15: Session 2
2:30-4:30: Community Conversation involving symposium participants, and
directors from Pittsburgh's small and large performance companies (theatre and
dance)
6:30: Reception at Open Stage Theatre
8:00: Performance: Othello: Noir
For information on the debates between August Wilson and Robert Brustein
please go to: http://www.princetoninfo.com/wilson.html
To read “The Ground on Which I Stand” please go to:
http://www.nathanielturner.com/groundonwhichistand.htm
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August Wilson versus Robert Brustein
These stories by Simon Saltzman and Nicole Plett were published in U.S. 1 Newspaper
on January 22 and April 16, 1997. All rights reserved.
Linked to Christian Science Monitor story entitled "Playwright August Wilson On Race
Relations and the Theater" published Friday, May 15, 1998 at
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/05/15/fp54s2-csm.htm
Did anyone have a clue last June in Princeton that Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
August Wilson would deliver the kind of keynote address -- "The Ground on Which I
Stand" -- potent and provocative enough to transform a long-smoldering brushfire into a
flaming feud. This theatrical feud has now been elevated into a public debate. And we are
all invited.
The exposition: In his keynote address to the Theater Communications Group's biennial
conference meeting at Princeton University, Wilson, the widely lauded and richly
rewarded playwright, delivered a powerful jeremiad supporting -- and demanding -funding for African-American theater in America. In the process, he also attacked the
published pronouncements of his long-time nemesis Robert Brustein, artistic director of
the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and theater critic for the
New Republic.
Wilson's address, in which he called Brustein (the only individual mentioned by name) "a
sniper, a naysayer, and a cultural imperialist," was in retaliation (or so Brustein has
inferred) to Brustein's earlier, unfavorable reviews of Wilson's widely admired plays. The
address, subsequently published in American Theatre magazine, triggered a response
from Brustein, accompanied by a counter-response from Wilson. The conflict continues
to both engage and enrage these two esteemed men of the theater, as it does the public
that listens to them.
In this ongoing and emotional dispute, we are asked to choose between Brustein's view
that "theater works best as a unifying rather than a segregating medium," and Wilson's
view that black theater, like the black experience, is unique and distinct, and "we cannot
allow others to have authority over our cultural and spiritual products." At Town Hall in
New York on Monday, January 27, at a special, one-night event, "On Cultural Power:
The August Wilson / Robert Brustein Discussion" continues and is open to the public. It
will be moderated by the lauded docu-dramatist and actor Anna Deavere Smith.
Evidently taking issue with the motives and agendas of those presumably misguided
theater-affiliated persons Wilson was referring to as "cultural imperialists," Wilson also
targeted the concept of "colorblind casting" as "an aberrant idea." Wilson took the
position that the very idea of an all-black production of `Death of a Salesman' is "an
assault on our presence, an insult to our intelligence."
15
"We reject any attempt to blot us out, to reinvent history and ignore our presence...," said
Wilson. "We want you to see us. We are black and beautiful. We have an honorable
history in the world of men... We do not need colorblind casting; we need some theaters
to develop our playwrights."
Did Wilson unearth another smoldering issue, that may yet reverberate across the nation,
when he lashed out at subscription-based theaters, whose audience, he said, "holds the
theater hostage to a mediocrity of tastes"? Is it true, as Wilson contends, that, by
including one or more African-American productions each season, these theaters actually
alienate and condescend to black audiences who "suffer no illusion of welcome"?
In his subsequent response to Wilson, Brustein questioned whether there shouldn't be
"some kind of statute of limitations on white guilt and white reparations." He further
berated Wilson for having "fallen into a monotonous tone of victimization." On the other
hand, Wilson blames Brustein for failing to "imagine a theater broad enough and secure
enough in its traditions to absorb and make use of all manners and cultures of American
life."
McCarter, George Street, Crossroads
Whether to defend the traditional esthetic of Western culture or to pursue the AfricanAmerican dream through the specificity of its art and culture is the question. This leads us
to also ponder the integrity of our nearby (and mostly diversified) professional theaters
such as McCarter Theater, George Street Playhouse, and particularly the culturallyexclusive Crossroads Theater Company.
Yet does Wilson truly believe that only black experience inspires black artists? Or that
black actors should only perform black roles authored by black playwrights? Will
Brustein ever concede that theater in America remains stubbornly addicted to, and
formulated to foster, only white values, and the so-called classical values of European
theater? The actions taken by the various theaters across America to either propel or
impede the development of a truly American theater are worth watching.
Do too many theaters across the nation ignore the contributions made by artists of various
ethnic and racial backgrounds? Perhaps. However, can anyone deny that the cultural
climate in our area is aggressively diversified? Is it possible that too many whites cannot
understand or do not want to understand Wilson when he condemns certain black artists
as "crossover artists," comparing them to "house slaves entertaining the white master and
his guests."
Although I did not attend Wilson's address, those who did describe it as both stirring and
divisive. Wilson was received with standing ovations both before and after speaking. One
reason some were disturbed was the subtle but insistent joining of Wilson's vivid
evocations of genetic memories of the slave trade with such anti-Semitic code words as
"financiers," and a description of black artists as "victims of the counting houses."
16
As a reporter, stirred enough by what I've heard and read to consider the positions taken
by both Wilson and Brustein, I can only try to understand these two equally impassioned
views. In the light of my own, presumably biased, perception of either the exclusionary
or cross-cultural direction taken or rejected by our own area theaters, I offer this multicultured and diversified consideration, gleaned from my own conversations with black
artists presenting their work in the area.
Paul Robeson
When Rutgers professor Harold Scott reflected on his experience directing "Paul
Robeson," the play about a true 20th-century Renaissance man and a spokesman for
African Americans who were yet to experience real democracy, he expressed the
difficulty of keeping the memory of significant African-American artists like Robeson,
James Baldwin, and Lorraine Hansbury before the public. If one can assume that he is
talking about a predominantly white public, should we take to heart Wilson's rebuke of
the white foundations for failing to create and subsidize more black theater companies
that might then have a mandate to foster and preserve black culture?
It is interesting to think about whether Robeson's family ire with the "Paul Robeson"
script, and the picketing and the controversy that arose during the run of the 1978
Broadway production, would have been avoided had the dramatized Robeson not
appeared to them a victim. There is the implication in Wilson's statement -- "I stand
myself and my art squarely on the self-defining ground of the slave quarters" -- that all
black artists are unwittingly turned into victims in a white or even in a multi-cultural
theater.
Vernel Bagneris
Vernel Bagneris, who played Jelly Roll Morton at Crossroads last January, makes an
interesting point regarding people, artists, in particular, of color. Bagneris, like Morton,
who was born into New Orleans' Creole society, says that some people of color are not
interested in identifying with either black or white society. "They want to be left alone,"
states Bagneris. Would then Wilson want to see support of a separate and subsidized
theater for Creoles? Or would Brustein's contention that minority playwrights "drenched
in their own cultural juices . . . and capable of telling stories that include us all," prove
again that theater works best as a unifying rather than as a segregating medium?
Emily Mann
Emily Mann, artistic director of the McCarter Theater, credits South African playwright
and friend Athol Fugard for suggesting that there is a time for writers to act as a dissident
voice and a time for writers to be nation builders. "I'm trying to find that balance here,"
says Mann whose docu-dramas "Greensboro: A Requiem" and "Having Our Say" deal
specifically with the black experience in America. Mann, who is both white and liberal,
says about her writing, most of which is based on political and social issues: "A lot of
wounds need to be healed, truths need to be exposed." Does Wilson then have the
17
authority to challenge her (or other non-black writers') freedom, license, or directive to
dramatize black conduct and manners. Would Wilson decry Mann for her vision, because
she is not black, and therefore not "fueled by black philosophy, mythology, history,
creative motif, social organization, and ethos?"
Eugene Lee
Playwright Eugene Lee made an interesting observation last March, prior to the
Crossroads premiere of his play, "Fear Itself." While he expressed the fact that "for
African Americans, there is fear of police brutality, and a sense of some genocidal
threat," there is also "the general fear of failure." Is America -- where philosophy,
mythology, history, comes out of the strong white Eurocentric ethos -- a more fearsome
and tenuous arena for the black artist?
Certainly deep-seated sensitivities are stirred when a prominent black artist's failure is
pronounced as such by a white critic. When Brustein says that Wilson's writing is
"weakly structured, badly edited, prosaic and overwritten," was this not the cue for
Wilson to say and further expound on his theory that black culture "is an experience that
cannot be fully absorbed or understood by white people, much less criticized by them?"
I wonder if Wilson might temper his position had he seen "God's Field," at Playwrights
Theater of New Jersey last year, written by a white woman playwright who was born in
New York but now lives in Nebraska. Her play about a black family that undergoes a
tumultuous change when a minstrel show comes to town is as richly detailed with the
realities of black life in turn-of-the-century Nebraska as are Athol Fugard's plays about
blacks in South Africa.
Keith Glover
Playwright Keith Glover, whose play "Coming of the Hurricane" made a favorable
impact this fall at its Crossroads production, might have a problem with Wilson's take on
white critics. Glover was still a teenager when his first play was singled out in a
competition of the Young Playwrights Festival in New York and awarded a staged
reading. Glover recalled the encouragement he received from the Festival's founder
Gerald Chapman, and especially by his mentor there, playwright Ruth Goetz, who helped
the young Glover hone his craft and his uncertain skill. Would Wilson consign such onthe-job training to the kind of "assimilation that black Americans have been rejecting for
the past 300 years?"
In a late-breaking addition to the debate, Crossroads Theater has just announced its spring
production of August Wilson's new play, "Jitney." It begins previews on April 13 and
plays to May 11. This latest coup for Crossroads could well represent Wilson's courage of
his convictions, since Crossroads was singled out in his keynote as the only one of 66
members of the League of Regional Theaters "dedicated to preserving and promoting
black culture."
18
To be thoroughly confused as much by the benefits and pitfalls of multi-culturalism as we
are by the celebratory yet exclusionary nature of separatism is most likely a step in the
right direction. Whether to be thrown into a cultural melting pot that may unwittingly
blur the brilliance of America's diversity, or to be tucked into an isolated environment
designed to fragment, nurture, and better define what American culture represents, is a
choice. Are we to make the choice, or will others decide for us?
-- Simon Saltzman
On Cultural Power: The August Wilson/Robert Brustein Discussion , New York's
Town Hall, 123 West 43rd Street, New York, 212-307-7171. $10 & $20.
Wilson's Opening Salvo
Did anyone have a clue last June in Princeton that Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
August Wilson would deliver the kind of keynote address -- "The Ground on Which I
Stand" -- potent and provocative enough to transform a long-smoldering brushfire into a
flaming feud. This theatrical feud has now been elevated into a public debate. And we are
all invited.
The exposition: In his keynote address to the Theater Communications Group's biennial
conference meeting at Princeton University, Wilson, the widely lauded and richly
rewarded playwright, delivered a powerful jeremiad supporting -- and demanding -funding for African-American theater in America. In the process, he also attacked the
published pronouncements of his long-time nemesis Robert Brustein, artistic director of
the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and theater critic for the
New Republic.
Wilson's address, in which he called Brustein (the only individual mentioned by name) "a
sniper, a naysayer, and a cultural imperialist," was in retaliation (or so Brustein has
inferred) to Brustein's earlier, unfavorable reviews of Wilson's widely admired plays. The
address, subsequently published in American Theatre magazine, triggered a response
from Brustein, accompanied by a counter-response from Wilson. The conflict continues
to both engage and enrage these two esteemed men of the theater, as it does the public
that listens to them.
In this ongoing and emotional dispute, we are asked to choose between Brustein's view
that "theater works best as a unifying rather than a segregating medium," and Wilson's
view that black theater, like the black experience, is unique and distinct, and "we cannot
allow others to have authority over our cultural and spiritual products." At Town Hall in
New York on Monday, January 27, at a special, one-night event, "On Cultural Power:
The August Wilson / Robert Brustein Discussion" continues and is open to the public. It
will be moderated by the lauded docu-dramatist and actor Anna Deavere Smith.
Evidently taking issue with the motives and agendas of those presumably misguided
theater-affiliated persons Wilson was referring to as "cultural imperialists," Wilson also
19
targeted the concept of "colorblind casting" as "an aberrant idea." Wilson took the
position that the very idea of an all-black production of `Death of a Salesman' is "an
assault on our presence, an insult to our intelligence."
"We reject any attempt to blot us out, to reinvent history and ignore our presence...," said
Wilson. "We want you to see us. We are black and beautiful. We have an honorable
history in the world of men... We do not need colorblind casting; we need some theaters
to develop our playwrights."
Jitney' at Crossroads
This story by Simon Saltzman and Nicole Plett was published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on
April 16, 1997. All rights reserved.
This is something we have all dreamed of," says Ricardo Khan, co-founder and artistic
director of Crossroads Theater, at a press conference on April 2. On Khan's left sits
August Wilson, widely regarded as America's most important working playwright, and
beyond him director Walter Dallas, and a group of five African-American actors. On
Crossroad's agenda is "Jitney," the latest entry in Wilson's grand-scaled play cycle that he
has configured to celebrate, decade by decade, the black experience in America.
In his remarks to introduce Wilson to reporters, Khan cannot conceal his pride as he
announces that Crossroads, the country's preeminent theater dedicated to black culture
(and the only black member of LORT, the League of Resident Theaters), is not only
launching its 103rd production and preparing for a 20th anniversary bash, but it is
achieving this with a magnificent milestone.
This marks the first time that Crossroads will stage a play by Wilson, an august
playwright if ever there was one, before its New York premiere. Following a run at
Boston's Huntington Theater, "Jitney" is expected to open at New York's Manhattan
Theater Club in the fall. Crossroads produced its first Wilson work, "The Piano Lesson,"
last season.
When Khan, as newly-elected president of the Theater Communications Group, invited
Wilson to contribute a keynote address to its biennial meeting at McCarter Theater last
June, he could hardly have imagined the repercussions would be so far-reaching. Now
Wilson's "Jitney" has replaced the season's previously announced premiere; Crossroads
has garnered a major feature in the New York Times; and some 60 theater critics from
newspapers across the country are scheduled to view "Jitney" as part of their association's
New York conference.
Wilson's "Jitney" has been in various stages of development since it was written in 1979,
most recently staged last year at the Pittsburgh Public Theater. It was written before the
complement of six plays -- "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom,"
"The Piano Lesson," "Fences," "Two Trains Running," and "Seven Guitars" -- that
constitute Wilson's impressive, Pulitzer Prize-winning theater canon.
20
The 52-year-old Wilson recalls that he was a poet but not yet a playwright in 1979 when
he wrote "Jitney." It wasn't until 1980, when he won a Jerome Fellowship at the
Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, and found himself sitting in a room with 16
playwrights, that he told himself, "I must be a playwright." And after completing three
more plays, he began to envision his work as unfolding chronicle of African-American
thought and experience.
In Pittsburgh, Wilson's hometown, a jitney is the type of car service that is known as a
gypsy cab in New York. "Jitney" is set in a jitney station which Wilson describes as a
self-created, self-supplied, self-owned, self-run taxi service. Here each man pays monthly
dues and uses the jitney's well-known telephone number and location as the station from
which to use their own vehicles to make cab runs.
"I was initially intrigued by the idea of creating something from nothing," says Wilson.
"These are men who, not having the opportunities for jobs, created jobs. It's about the
ability of black people in America to find a ways and means to survive and prosper."
Wilson says that "Jitney," like all his plays, deals with the manners and social intercourse
of black people that is uniquely theirs. At the core of the drama is a father-son conflict. It
opens as a son who has served 20 years in the penitentiary on a murder conviction, is
released from jail, and meets the father who has not visited him once.
While Wilson has been called to task by some critics for over-writing his plays, famous
for their long and lyrical monologues, "Jitney" stands, in his opinion, uniquely spare.
During rehearsals for last year's Pittsburgh production, he recalls a cast member
remarking to him: "Ain't nobody goin' to know this is your play. Ain't got no monologues
in it."
Wilson says that "Jitney" represents his first work after he came to "value and respect the
way black people talk." He credits a truism he encountered in a political pamphlet -"Language describes the idea of the one who speaks it" -- as changing his life. Thus
Wilson began his creative investigation into the language, the thought processes, and the
cultural roots of blacks in America.
"My pipe dream to do a Wilson play prior to New York has come true," says Khan, who
doesn't care that "Jitney" is not exactly a new play, certainly not a world premiere, but
rather one that Wilson is reworking in house. Kahn feels that Wilson's month-long
residency to develop and shape "Jitney" at Crossroads is a moment of pride for the
theater. Wilson, in turn, says he feels at home at Crossroads; he found two pennies on the
Livingston Avenue sidewalk that prove it: "I was in the right place at the right time," he
says, "but so were the pennies."
Director Walter Dallas
Walter Dallas, no stranger to Wilson's work, directs "Jitney." A leader in the black theater
movement in America, Dallas directed "The Rabbit Foot" at Crossroads in 1988, and has
21
since become artistic director of the acclaimed Freedom Theater in Philadelphia. "Jitney"
reunites Wilson and Dallas, who worked together on the world premiere of "Seven
Guitars" at the Goodman Theater in Chicago.
Dallas appears to have a hook on working successfully with Wilson. "I don't ask a lot of
questions. I get the answers by just getting to know Wilson better," says Dallas. "The
work just evolves daily." Dallas comes directly to Crossroads after receiving kudos for
his direction of world premiere of "The Old Settler" by John Henry Redwood at
McCarter Theater.
It may be too soon to see a fresh, positive perspective on the opposing views expressed
by Wilson and theater critic and author Robert Brustein at their January debate, "On
Cultural Power," at New York's Town Hall, an event precipitated by the furor that
greeted Wilson's 1996 TCG address. Wilson says he is far from putting that debate
behind him: "It's part of who I am."
Wilson's primary concern in his TCG address, and one that he returns to today, was that
there was only one black theater among 65 LORT (League of Resident Theaters) theaters
in America. He announces here that the ratio has since grown to 1 of 66. Asked then how
the theater can impact troubled race relations in America, Wilson makes it clear that he is
a playwright, not a sociologist. With prompting from Khan, he offers the same answer he
gave during the Town Hall debate: "Art doesn't change society. Art changes people.
People change the world."
Wilson's Pittsburgh Years
Wilson was born and raised in Pittsburgh where he spent his first 33 years. A 13-year
interlude in St. Paul, Minnesota, followed, before he moved to his present home in
Seattle, Washington.
"I came to manhood in Pittsburgh in the '60s. That's still what I know best, and that's
what I write about," says Wilson. Although he uses Pittsburgh as the setting for his play
cycle, he insists that none of the characters or incidents imitate his life there. He draws
his characters from aspects of his own personality.
The son of a white father and an African-American mother, Wilson was raised in the
black community by his mother alone. He explains that his "father figures" were those he
chose. "Growing up, my idea of manhood came from Charley Burley, a Hall of Fame
prize fighter, a tremendous fighter out of Pittsburgh, who was fighting there in the '40s
and '50s. I wanted to be like him. And he would get dressed up on a Friday night, real
clean, in a Stetson hat, with the Florsheim shoes. And I'd see these men standing on the
corner, and I thought, I can't wait to grow up and get dressed up and go stand on the
corner of Fullerton and Wylie.
"Of course by the time I got old enough to go stand on the corner they had torn down
Fullerton and Wylie, and I didn't have the money to go buy them Stetson hats and
22
Florsheim shoes. But I did stand on the corner for about 15 years, figuratively speaking. I
founded a theater, and fell in with a group of artists, we put out magazines and things,
like all young artists do."
Wilson's mother taught her son to read when he was only four, and by the age of five he
had his own library card. Wilson recounts how his breakthrough into writing came with
his discovery of the word "breakfast" -- that it was a conjunction of the two words
"break" and "fast." It was a love affair with language. "I never looked back," he says, "I
thought, this is wonderful. I started taking two words and putting them together. I fell in
love with the language, and with the whole idea that you could communicate using these
symbols."
Wilson's Black Theater View
Is there a parallel between the root of Wilson's jitney cab and his dream of a path for
black theater? The jitney cab, after all, represents the only way many American blacks
can travel back and forth to their segregated neighborhoods. White cabs will not go there.
And now Wilson suggests that the white theater is not able to transport black audiences
either. A true black theater would be a vehicle by which black people can get where they
need to go.
"It's similar to the old Negro Baseball League," says Wilson. "There you had a league
that was self-sufficient, and you had a community of people culturally self-sufficient, and
on Sundays they would pay their three dollars, sit in the bleachers and support this
league. And Mr. Samuels sold his peanuts, and Mr. Johnson sold his chicken sandwiches,
and that gave them income. You had a whole thing going.
"Once that broke down, once they said, `Okay, you guys can come over here and play in
the white league,' all this disappeared. And not only did the Negro league fold, but all the
things that the league meant to the people. They've lost a large part of their culture and a
large part of themselves."
"There is nothing wrong with integration per se, as long as everyone has equal access to
resources," he says. "To assimilate is to adopt the values of another culture. I'm opposed
to that idea, because blacks have something of value. To assimilate is to erase yourself,
and I don't think that's what we want to do." The uniqueness of black culture is something
to be valued as well as something to be nurtured independently.
"If you have a theater that exists in a city that's 73 percent black," he says, "I think that
should be a black theater. It's as simple as that. Because your theater should serve the
community which it is in. I think some of the existing LORT theaters should change their
mission statement to preserve and promote black culture."
Although Wilson is indebted to the formal dramatic style that derives from Aristotle's
rules of drama, he acknowledges that the African-American theater known as "the Chitlin
Circuit" (a misnomer as far as he is concerned), immensely popular traveling productions
23
of contemporary moralistic melodramas, should be credited for creating a new black
esthetic. A play like "Beauty Shop" may even offer the esthetic seeds for the black theater
of the future.
Is a separate black theater a realistic wish, we ask, in a nation constituted of myriad
white, non-white, Hispanic, Asian, African-American, Native American, and other mixed
and matched racial groups? This Wilson does not accept. He insists that the legacy of
slavery, the number of Americans of African descent, 35 million, and their enforced
settlement in America, gives this racial group a unique status.
"The American theater is steered toward the single value system," says Wilson. "Most
American theaters are paternalistic and white run. You may be invited, but you still have
to take your hat and go home when your visiting pass expires, when they finish doing
your play. It still remains a white theater, I don't care how many black plays they do."
Certainly, in Wilson's case, his eminent stature has given him virtual carte blanche to
have his plays produced anywhere he chooses. But he does not want black theater artists
to continue to play the role of the visitor. One way to accomplish this, he says, is to play
the host. But for this to happen "black theaters have to be allowed to access the
resources."
Meanwhile Khan's 20-year effort to build and sustain a black theater is paying off, and
his long-cherished dream of having Wilson in residence is realized. Now only time will
tell if Wilson's dream to identify and promote at least six more black American theaters
to LORT status can come true.
By -- Simon Saltzman and Nicole Plett
Corrections or additions?
This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com -- the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in
Princeton, New Jersey.
24
The Ground on Which I Stand
By August Wilson
We can meet on the common ground of theatre as
a field of work and endeavor.
But we cannot meet on the common ground of
experience.
In 1996, the celebrated playwright August Wilson delivered an address entitled “The Ground on
Which I Stand” to the Theatre Communications Group National Conference:
I have come here today to make a testimony, to talk about the ground on which I stand
and all the many grounds on which I and my ancestors have toiled, and the ground of
theatre on which my fellow artists and I have labored to bring forth its fruits, its daring
and its sometimes lacerating, and often healing, truths.
I wish to make it clear from the outset, however, that I do not have a mandate to speak for
anyone. There are many intelligent blacks working in the American theatre who speak in
loud and articulate voices. It would be the greatest of presumptions to say I speak for
them. I speak only myself and those who may think as I do.
In one guise, the ground I stand on has been pioneered by the Greek dramatists—by
Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles—by William Shakespeare, by Shaw and Ibsen, and
by the American dramatists Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. In
another guise, the ground that I stand on has been pioneered by my grandfather, by Nat
Turner, by Denmark Vesey, by Martin Delaney, Marcus Garvey and the Honorable Elijah
Muhammad. That is the ground of the affirmation of the value of one being, an
affirmation of his worth in the face of society’s urgent and sometimes profound denial. It
was this ground as a young man coming into manhood searching for something to which
dedicate my life that I discovered the Black Power movement of the ’60s. I felt it a duty
and an honor to participate in that historic moment, as the people who had arrived in
America chained and malnourished in the hold of a 350-foot Portuguese, Dutch or
English sailing ship, were now seeking ways to alter their relationship to the society in
which they lived—and, perhaps more important, searching for ways to alter the shared
expectations of themselves as a community of people.
25
The Black Power movement of the ’60s: I find it curious but no small accident that I
seldom hear those words “Black Power” spoken, and when mention is made of that part
of black history in America, whether in the press or in conversation, reference is made to
the Civil Rights Movement as though the Black Power movement—an important social
movement by America’s ex-slaves—had in fact never happened. But the Black Power
movement of the ’60s was a reality; it was the kiln in which I was fired, and has much to
do with the person I am today and the ideas and attitudes that I carry as part of my
consciousness.
I mention this because it is difficult to disassociate my concerns with theatre from the
concerns of my life as a black man, and it is difficult to disassociate one part of my life
from another. I have strived to live it all seamless … art and life together, inseparable and
indistinguishable. The ideas I discovered and embraced in my youth when my idealism
was full blown I have not abandoned in middle age when idealism is something less the
blooming, but wisdom is starting to bud. The ideas of self-determination, self-respect and
self-defense that governed my life in the ’60s I find just as valid and self-urging in 1996.
The need to alter our relationship to the society and to alter the shared expectations of
ourselves as a racial group, I find of greater urgency now than it was then.
I am what is known, at least among the followers and supporters of the ideas of Marcus
Garvey, as a “race man.” That is simply that I believe that race matters—that is the
largest, most identifiable and the most important part of our personality. It is the largest
category of identification because it is the one that most influences your perception of
yourself, and it is the one to which others in the world of men most respond. Race is also
an important part of the American landscape, as America is made up of an amalgamation
of races from all parts of the globe. Race is also the product of a shared gene pool that
allows for group identification, and it is an organizing principle around which cultures are
formed. When I say culture I am speaking about the behavior patterns, arts, beliefs,
institutions and all other products of human work and thought as expressed in a particular
community of people.
There are some people who will say that black Americans do not have a culture—that
cultures are reserved for other people, most notably Europeans of various ethnic
groupings, and that black Americans made up a sub-group of American culture that is
derived from the European origins of its majority population. But black Americans are
Africans, and there are many histories and many cultures on the African continent.
Those who would deny black Americans their culture would also deny them their history
and the inherent values that are a part of all human life.
Growing up in my mother’s house at 1727 Bedford Ave. in Pittsburgh, Pa., I learned the
language, the eating habits, the religious beliefs, the gestures, the notions of common
sense, attitudes towards sex, concepts of beauty and justice, and the response to pleasure
and pain, that my mother had learned from her mother, and which could trace back to the
first African who set foot on the continent. It is this culture that stands solidly on these
shores today as a testament to the resiliency of the African-American spirit.
26
The term black or African-American not only denotes race, it denotes condition, and
carries with it the vestige of slavery and the social segregation and abuse of opportunity
so vivid in our memory. That this abuse of opportunity and truncation of possibility is
continuing and is so pervasive in our society in 1996 says much about who we are and
much about the work that is necessary to alter our perceptions of each other and to effect
meaningful prosperity for all.
The problematic nature of the relationship between white and black for too long led us
astray the fulfillment of our possibilities as a society. We stare at each other across a
divide of economics and privilege that has become an encumbrance on black Americans’
ability to prosper and on the collective will and spirit of our national purpose.
In terms of economics and privilege, one significant fact affects us all in the American
theatre: Of the 66 LORT theatre, there is only one that can be considered black. From this
it could be falsely assumed that there aren’t sufficient numbers of blacks working in the
American theatre to sustain and support more theatres.
If you do not know, I will tell you that black theatre in America is alive … it is vibrant …
it is vital … it just isn’t funded. Black theatre doesn’t share in the economics that would
allow it to support its artists and supply them with meaningful avenues to develop their
talent and broadcast and disseminate ideas crucial to its growth. The economics are
reserved as privilege to the overwhelming abundance of institutions that preserve,
promote and perpetuate white culture.
That is not a complaint. That is an advertisement. Since the funding sources, both public
and private, do not publicly carry avowed missions of exclusion and segregated support,
this is obviously either a glaring case of oversight, or we the proponents of black theatre
have not made our presence or needs known. I hope here tonight to correct that.
I do not have the time in this short talk to reiterate the long and distinguished history of
black theatre—often accomplished amid adverse and hostile conditions—but I would like
to take the time to mark a few high points.
There are and have always been two distinct and parallel traditions in black art: that is, art
that is conceived and design to entertain white society, and art that feeds the spirit and
celebrates the life of black American by designing its strategies for survival and
prosperity.
An important part of black theatre that is often ignored but is seminal to its tradition is its
origins on the slave plantations of the South. Summoned to the “big house” to entertain
the slave owner and his guests, the slave that reached its pinnacle for whites consisted of
whatever the slave imagined or knew that his master wanted to see and hear. This
tradition has its present life counterpart in the crossover artists that slant their material for
white consumption.
27
This second tradition occurred when the African in the confines of the slave quarters
sought to invest his spirit with the strength of his ancestors by conceiving in his art, in his
song and dance, a world in which he was the spiritual center and his existence was a
manifest act of the creator from whom life flowed. He then could create art that was
functional and furnished him with a spiritual temperament necessary for his survival as
property and the dehumanizing status that was attendant to that.
I stand myself and my art squarely on the self-defining ground of the slave quarters, and
find the ground to be hallowed and made fertile by the blood and bones of the men and
woman who can be described as warriors on the cultural battlefield that affirmed their
self-worth. As there is no idea that cannot be contained by black life, these men and
women found themselves to be sufficient and secure in their art and their instruction.
It was this high ground of self-definition that the black playwrights of the ’60s marked
out for themselves. Ron Milner, Ed Bullins, Philip Hayes Dean, Richard Wesley, Lonne
Elder III, Sonia Sanchez, Barbara Ann Teer and Amiri Baraka were among those
playwrights who were particularly vocal and where remain indebted to them for their
brave and courageous forays into an area that is marked with land mines and the shadows
of snipers—those who would reserve the territory of arts and letters and the American
theatre as their own special province and point blacks toward the ball fields and the
bandstands.
That black theatre today comes under such assaults should surprise no one, as we are on
the verge of reclaiming and reexamining the purpose and pillars of our art and laying out
new directions for its expansion. As such we make a target for cultural imperialists who
seek to empower and propagate their ideas about the world as the only valid ideas, and
see blacks as woefully deficient not only in arts and letters but in the abundant gifts of
humanity.
In the 19th century, the lack of education, the lack of contact with different cultures, the
expensive and slow methods of travel and communication fostered such ideas, and the
breeding ground of ignorance and racial intolerance promoted them.
The King’s English and the lexicon of a people given to such ignorance and intolerance
did not do much to dispel such obvious misconceptions, but provided them with a home.
I cite Webster’s Third New International Dictionary:
“BLACK: outrageously wicked, dishonorable, connected with the devil, menacing,
sullen, hostile, unqualified, illicit, illegal, violators of public regulations, affected by
some undesirable condition, etc.
“WHITE: free from blemish, moral stain or impurity; outstandingly righteous, innocent,
not marked by malignant influence, notably, auspicious, fortunate, decent, a sterling
man.”
28
Such is the linguistic environment that informs the distance that separates blacks and
whites in America and which the cultural imperialist, who cannot imagine a life existing
and flourishing outside his benevolent control, embraces.
Robert Brustein, writing in an article/review titled “Unity from Diversity [The New
Republic, July 19–26, ’93] is apparently disturbed that “there is a tremendous outpouring
of work by minority artists,” which he attributes to cultural diversity. He writes that the
practice of extending invitations to a national banquet from which a lot of hungry people
have long been excluded is a practice that can lead to confused standards. He goes on to
establish a presumption of inferiority of the work of minority artists. “Funding agencies
have started substituting sociological criteria for aesthetic criteria in their grant
procedures, indicating that ‘elitist’ notions like quality and excellence are no longer
functional.” He goes on to say, “It’s disarming in all senses of the word to say that we
don’t share common experiences that are measurable by common standards. But the
growing number of truly talented artists with more universal interests suggests that we
may soon be in a position to return to a single value system.”
Brustein’s surprisingly sophomoric assumption that this tremendous outpouring of work
by minority artists have started substituting sociological for aesthetic criteria, leaving
aside notions like quality and excellence, shows him to be a victim of 19th-century
thinking and the linguistic environment that posits blacks as unqualified. Quite possibly
this tremendous outpouring of works by minority artists may lead to a raising of
standards and a raising of the levels of excellence, but Mr. Brustein cannot allow that
possibility.
To suggest that funding agencies are rewarding inferior work by pursuing sociological
criteria only serve to call into question the tremendous outpouring of plays by white
playwrights who benefit from funding given to the 66 LORT theatres.
Are those theatres funded on sociological or aesthetic criteria? Do we have 66 excellent
theatres? Or do those theatres benefit from the sociological advantage that they are run by
whites and cater to largely white audiences?
The truth is that often where there are aesthetic criteria of excellence, there are also
sociological criteria that have traditionally excluded blacks. I say raise the standards and
remove the sociological consideration of race as privilege and we will meet you at the
crossroads, in equal numbers, prepared to do the work of extending and developing the
common ground of the American theatre.
We are capable of work of the highest order; we can answer to the high standards of
world-class art. Anyone who doubts our capabilities at this late stage is being
intellectually dishonest.
We can meet on the common ground of theatre as a field of work and endeavor. But we
cannot meet on the common ground of experience.
29
Where is the common ground n the horrifics of lynching? Where is the common ground
in the main of a policeman’s bullet? Where is the common ground in the hull or the deck
of a slave ship with its refreshments of air and expanse?
We will not be denied our history.
We have voice and we have temper. We are too far along this road from the loss of our
political will, we are too far along the road of reassembling ourselves, too far along the
road to regaining spiritual health to allow such transgression of our history to go
unchallenged.
The commonalties we share are the commonalities of culture. We decorate our houses.
That is something we do in common. We do it differently because we value different
things. We have different manners and different values of social intercourse. We have
different ideas of what a party is.
There are some commonalities to our different ideas. We both offer food and drink to our
guests, but because we have different culinary values, different culinary histories, we
offer different food and drink. In our culinary history, we have learned to make do with
the feet and ears and tails and intestines of the pig rather than the loin and the ham and
the bacon. Because of our different histories with the same animal, we have different
culinary ideas. But we share a common experience with the pig as opposed to say
Muslims and Jews, who do not share that experience.
We can meet on the common ground of the American theatre.
We cannot share a single value system if that value system consists of the values of white
Americans based on their European ancestors. We reject that as Cultural Imperialism. We
need a value system that includes our contributions as Africans in America. Our agendas
are a valid as yours. We may disagree, we may forever be on opposite sides of aesthetics,
but we can only share a value system that is inclusive of all Americans and recognizes
their unique and valuable contributions.
The ground together. We must develop the ground together. We reject the idea of
equality among equals, but we say rather the equality of all men.
The common values of the American theatre that we can share are plot … dialogue …
characterization … design. How we both make use of them will be determined by who
we are—what ground we are standing on and what our cultural values are.
Theatre is part of art history in terms of its craft and dramaturgy, but it is part of social
history in terms of how it is financed and governed. By making money available to
theatres willing to support colorblind casting, the financiers and governors have signaled
not only their unwillingness to support black theatre but their willingness to fund
dangerous and divisive assaults against it. Colorblind casting is an aberrant idea that has
never had any validity other than as a tool of the Cultural Imperialists who view
30
American culture, rooted in the icons of European culture, as beyond reproach in its
perfection. It is inconceivable to them that life could be lived and enriched without
knowing Shakespeare or Mozart. Their gods, their manners, their being, are the only true
and correct representations of humankind. They refuse to recognize black conduct and
manners as part of a system that is fueled by its own philosophy, mythology, history,
creative motif, social organization and ethos. The ideas that blacks have their own way of
responding to the world, their own values, style, linguistics, religion and aesthetics, is
unacceptable to them.
For a black actor to stand on the stage as part of a social milieu that has denied him his
gods, his culture, his humanity, his mores, his ideas of himself and the world he lives in,
is to be in league with a thousand nay-sayers who wish to corrupt the vigor and spirit of
his heart.
To cast us in the role of mimics is to deny us our own competence.
Our manners, our style, our approach to language, our gestures, and our bodies are not for
rent. The history of our bodies—the maimings … the lashings … the lynchings …the
body that is capable of inspiring profound rage and pungent cruelty—is not for rent.
To mount an all-black production of a Death of a Salesman or any other play conceived
for white actors as an investigation of the human condition through the specifics of white
culture is to deny us our humanity our own history, and the need to make our own
investigations from the culture ground on which we stand as black Americans. It is an
assault on our presence, our difficult but honorable history in America; it is an insult to
our intelligence, our playwrights, and our many and varied contributions to the society
and the world at large.
The idea of colorblind casting is the same idea of assimilation that black Americans have
been rejecting for the past 380 years. For the record, we reject it again. We reject any
attempt to blot us out, to reinvent history and ignore our presence or to maim our spiritual
product. We must not continue to meet on t his path. We will not deny our history, and
we will not allow it to be made to be of little consequence, to be ignored or
misinterpreted.
In an effort to spare us the burden of being “affected by an undesirable condition” and as
a gesture of benevolence, many whites (like the proponents of colorblind casting) say,
“Oh, I don’t see color.” We want you to see us. We are black and beautiful. We are not
patrons of the linguistic environment that had us as “unqualified, and violators of public
regulations.” We are not a menace to society. We are not ashamed. We have an honorable
history in the world of men. We come from a long line of honorable people with complex
codes of ethnics and social discourse, people who devised myths and systems of
cosmology and systems of economics. We are not ashamed, and do not need you to be
ashamed for us. Nor do we need the recognition of our blackness to be couched in
abstract phases like “artist of color.” Who are you talking about? A Japanese artist? An
Eskimo? A Filipino? A Mexican? A Cambodian? A Nigerian? An African American?
31
Are we to suppose that if you put a white person on one side of the scale and the rest of
humanity lumped together as nondescript “people of color” on the other side, that it
would balance out? That whites carry that much spiritual weight? We reject that. We are
unique, and we are specific.
We do not need colorblind casting; we need some theatres to develop our playwrights.
We need those misguided financial resources to be put to better use. We cannot develop
our playwrights with the meager resources at our disposal. Why is it difficult to imagine 9
black theatres but not 66 white ones? Without theatres we cannot develop our talents. If
we cannot develop our talents, then everyone suffers: our writers; the theatre; the
audience. Actors are deprived of the jobs in support of the art—the company manager,
the press concessionaires, the people that work in wardrobe, the box-office staff, the
ushers and the janitors. We need some theatres. We cannot continue like this. We have
only one life to develop our talent, to fulfill our potential as artists. One life, and it is
short, and the lack of the means to develop our talent is an encumbrance on that life.
We did not sit on the sidelines while the immigrants of Europe, through hard work, skill,
cunning, guile and opportunity, built America into an industrial giant of the 20th century.
It was our labor that provided the capital. It was our labor in the shipyards and the
stockyards and the coal mines and the steel mills. Our labor built the roads and the
railroads. And when America was challenged, we strode on the battlefield, our boots
strapped on and our blood left to soak into the soil of places whose names we could not
pronounce, against an enemy whose only crime was ideology. We left our blood in
France and Korea and the Philippines and Vietnam, and our only reward has been the
deprivation of possibility and the denial of our moral personality.
It cannot continue. The ground together: The American ground on which I stand and
which my ancestors purchased with their perseverance, with their survival, with their
manners and with their faith.
It cannot continue, as other assaults upon our presence and our history cannot continue:
When the New York Times publishes an article on pop singer Michael Bolton and lists as
his influences four white singers, then as an afterthought tosses in the phase “and the
great black rhythm and blues singers, “it cannot be anything but purposeful with intent to
maim. These great black rhythm and blues singers are reduced to an afterthought on the
edge of oblivion—one stroke of the editor’s pen and the history of American music is
revised, and Otis Redding, Jerry Butler and Rufus Thomas are consigned to the dustbin of
history while Joe Cocker, Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart are elevated to the status of the
originators and creators of a vital art that is a product of our spiritual travails; the history
of music becomes a fabrication, a blatant forgery which under the hallowed auspices of
the New York Times is presented as the genuine article.
We cannot accept these assaults. We must defend and protect our spiritual fruits. To
ignore these assaults would be to be derelict our duties. We cannot accept them. Our
political capital will not permit them.
32
So much of what makes this country rich in art and all manners of spiritual life is the
contributions that we as African Americans have made. We cannot allow others to have
authority over our cultural and spiritual products. We reject, without reservation, any
attempts by anyone to rewrite our history so to deny us the rewards of our spiritual
labors, and to become the culture custodians of our art, our literature and our lives. To
give expression to the spirit that has been shaped and fashioned by our history is of
necessity to give voice and vent to the history itself.
It must remain for us a history of triumph.
The time has come for black playwrights to confer with one another, to come together to
meet each other face to face, to address question of aesthetics and ways to defend
ourselves from the nay-sayers who would trumpet our talents as insufficient to warrant
the same manner of investigation and exploration as the majority. We need to develop
guidelines for the protection of our cultural property, our contributions and the influence
they accrue. It is time we took responsibility for our talents in our own hands. We cannot
depend on others. We cannot depend on the directors, the managers or the actors to do the
work we should be doing for ourselves. It is our lives and the pursuit of our fulfillment
that are being encumbered by false ideas and perceptions.
It is time to embrace the political dictates of our history and answer the challenge to our
duties. I further think we should confer in a city in our ancestral homeland in the southern
part of the United States in 1998, so that we may enter the millennium united and
prepared for a long future of prosperity.
From the hull of a ship to self-determining, self-respecting people. That is the journey we
are making.
We are robust in spirit, we are bright with laughter, and we are bold in imagination. Our
blood is soaked into the soil and our bones lie scattered the whole way across the Atlantic
Ocean, as Hansel’s crumbs, to mark the way back home.
We are no longer in the House of Bondage, and soon we will no longer be victims of the
counting houses who hold from us ways to develop and support our talents and our
expressions of life and its varied meanings. Assaults upon the body politic that demean
and ridicule and depress the value and worth of our existence that seek to render it
immobile and to extinguish the flame of freedom lit eons ago by our ancestors upon
another continent—these must be met with a fierce and uncompromising defense.
If you are willing to accept it, it is your duty to affirm and urge that defense, that respect
and that determination.
I must mention here, with all due respect to W. E. B. DuBois, that the concept of a
“talented tenth” creates an artificial superiority. It is a fallacy and a dangerous idea that
only serves to divide us further. I am not willing to throw away the sons and daughters of
those people who gave more than lip service to the will to live and made it a duty to
33
prosper in spirit, if not in provision. All God’s children got talent. It is a dangerous idea
to set one part of the populace above and aside from the other. We do a grave disservice
to ourselves not to seek out and embrace and enable all of our human resources as a
people. All blacks in America, with very few exceptions—no matter what our status, no
matter the size of our bank accounts, no matter how many and what kind of academic
degrees we can place beside our names, no matter the furnishings and square footage of
our homes, the length of our closets and the quality of the wool and cotton that hangs
there—we all in America originated from the same place: the slave plantations of the
South. We all share a common past, and despite how some us might think and how it
might look, we all share a common present and will share a common future.
We can make a difference. Artists, playwrights, actors—we can be the spearhead of a
movement to reignite and reunite our people’s positive energy for a political and social
change that is reflective of our spiritual truths rather than economic fallacies. Our talents,
our truth, our belief in ourselves in all our hands. What we make of it will emerge as a
baptismal spray that names and defines. What we do now becomes history by which our
grandchildren will judge us.
We are not off on a tangent. The foundation of the American theatre is the foundation of
European theatre that begins with the great Greek dramatists; it is based on the
proscenium stage and the poetics of Aristotle. This is the theatre that we have chosen to
work in. We embrace the values of that theatre but reserve the right to amend, to explore,
to add our African consciousness and our African aesthetic to the art we produce.
To pursue our cultural expression does not separate us. We are not separatists as
Mr. Brustein asserts. We are American trying to fulfill our talents. We are not the
servants at the party. We are not apprentices in the kitchens. We are not the stableboys to
the King’s huntsmen. We are Africans. We are Americans. The irreversible sweep of
history has decreed that. We are artists who seek to develop our talents and give
expression to our personalities. We bring advantage to the common ground that is the
American theatre.
All theatres depend on an audience for its dialogue. To the American theatre, subscription
audiences are its life blood. But the subscription audiences are its life blood. But the
subscription audience holds the seats of our theatres hostage to the mediocrity of its
tastes, and serves to impede the further development of an audience for the work that we
do. While intentional or not, it serves to keep blacks out of the theatre where they suffer
no illusion of welcome anyway. A subscription thus becomes not a support system but
makes the patrons members of a club to which the theatre serves as a clubhouse. It is an
irony that the people who can most afford a full-price ticket get discounts for subscribing,
while the single-ticket buyer who cannot afford a subscription is charged the additional
burden of support to offset the subscription-buyer’s discount. It is a system that is in need
of overhaul to provide not only a more equitable access to tickets but access to influence
as well.
34
I look for and challenge students of arts management to be bold in their exploration of
new systems of funding theatres, including profit-making institutions and ventures, and I
challenge black artists and audiences to scale the walls erected by theatre subscriptions to
gain access to this vital area of spiritual enlightenment and enrichment that is the theatre.
All theatergoers have opinions about the work they witness. Critics have an informed
opinion. Sometimes it may be necessary for them to gather more information to become
more informed. As playwrights grow and develop, as the theatre changes, the critic has
an important responsibility to guide and encourage that growth. However, in the
discharge of their duties, it may be necessary for them to also grow and develop. A
stagnant body of critics, operating from the critical criteria of 40 years ago, makes for a
stagnant theatre without the fresh and abiding influence of contemporary ideas. It is the
critics who should be in the forefront of developing new tools for analysis necessary to
understand new influences.
The critic who can recognize a German neo-romantic influence should also be able to
recognize an American influence from blues or black church rituals, or any other
contemporary American influence.
The true critic does not sit in judgment. Rather he seeks to inform his reader, instead of
adopting a posture of self-conscious importance in which he sees himself a judge and
final arbiter of a work’s importance or value.
We stand on the verge of an explosion of playwriting talent that will challenge our critics.
As American playwrights absorb the influence of television and use new avenues of
approach to the practice of their craft, they will prove to be wildly inventive and
imaginative in creating dramas that will guide and influence contemporary life for years
to come.
Theatre can do that. It can disseminate ideas, it can educate even the miseducated,
because it is art—and all art reaches across that divide that makes order out of chaos, and
embraces the truth that overwhelms with its presence, and connects man to something
larger than himself and his imagination.
Theatre asserts that all human life is universal. Love, Honor, Duty, Betrayal belong and
pertain to every culture or race. The way they are acted on the playing field may be
different, but betrayal whether you are a South Sea Islander, a Mississippi farmer or an
English baron. All of human life is universal, and it is theatre that illuminates and confers
upon the universal the ability to speak for all men.
The ground together: We have to do it together. We cannot permit our lives waste away,
our talents unchallenged. We cannot permit a failure to our duty. We are brave and we
are boisterous, our mettle is proven, and we are dedicated.
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The ground together: the ground of the American theatre on which I am proud to stand …
the ground which our artistic ancestors purchase with their endeavors … with their
pursuit of the American spirit and its ideals.
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. We who are capable of those
noble pursuits should challenge the melancholy and barbaric, to bring the light of
angelic grace, peace, prosperity and the unencumbered pursuit of happiness to the
ground on which we all stand.
posted 15 November 2005
36
August Wilson: A timeline, 1945-2005
Monday, October 03, 2005
Compiled by Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Theater Critic
April 27, 1945
• Born Frederick August Kittel to Daisy Wilson, an African American whose parents
came from North Carolina, and Frederick Kittel, a red-haired baker who emigrated from
Bohemia, Germany at 10. Family lives at 1727 Bedford Ave. in the Hill District until he
is 12. The fourth child and oldest son of seven, his siblings are, in order of age, Freda
Ellis, Linda Jean Denoya, Donna Conley, Barbara Jean Wilson, Edwin Kittel and Richard
Kittel.
1957
• Family moves to Hazelwood, then later, back to the Hill.
1959
• Only black student in Central Catholic High School; threats and abuse drive him away.
Connelley Vocational High School proves unchallenging.
1960
• Drops out of Gladstone High School 10th grade when a teacher accuses him of
plagiarizing a 20-page paper on Napoleon. Gets his education at the Carnegie Library and
on the street.
1962-63
• Enlists in U.S. Army for three years, leaves after one.
1963
• Varied jobs -- porter, short-order cook, gardener, dishwasher.
1965
• Discovers the blues -- Bessie Smith's "Nobody Can Bake a Sweet Jelly Roll Like
Mine."
• Death of biological father, Frederick Kittel; changes name to August Wilson.
• Buys his first typewriter ($20); writes poetry.
• Moves into rooming house on Bedford Avenue.
1968
• Co-founds Black Horizon Theater with Rob Penny.
1969
• Death of stepfather, David Bedford.
• Marries Brenda Burton.
37
1970
• Daughter Sakina Ansari Wilson born, Jan. 22.
Early 1970s
• Continues active in Black Arts movement, mainly writing poetry.
1972
• Marriage ends.
1976
• Vernell Lillie directs his "The Homecoming" for Kuntu Repertory Theater.
• Sees his first professional play, Athol Fugard's "Sizwe Bansi Is Dead," about a black
man struggling with identity under apartheid, at Pittsburgh Public Theater.
1977
• Writes musical satire, "Black Bart and the Sacred Hills."
1978
• Moves to St. Paul, Minn., with advice of friend Claude Purdy; lands job writing for
Science Museum.
1980
• Fellowship at Minneapolis Playwrights Center.
1981
• Marries Judy Oliver, social worker.
1982
• "Jitney" staged by Allegheny Repertory Theatre in Pittsburgh: cast includes Sala Udin,
Milt Thompson, Monté Russell, Ron Pitts and Curtis Porter, directed by Bob Johnson.
• National Playwrights Conference at O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut accepts "Ma
Rainey's Black Bottom"; meets O'Neill chief Lloyd Richards who goes on to direct his
first six plays on Broadway.
1983
• Death of Daisy Wilson.
1984
• "Ma Rainey" premieres at Yale Repertory Theatre, moves right to Broadway, wins his
first New York Drama Critics Circle best play award.
1985
• "Fences" premieres at Yale Rep.
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1986
• "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" premieres at Yale Rep.
• Reunion of Centre Avenue Poets Theater Workshop with Maisha Baton, Rob Penny,
etc.
1987
• "Fences" opens on Broadway, wins NYDCC Award and Wilson's first Pulitzer Prize,
grosses $11 million in its first year (Broadway record for a non-musical).
• Kuntu stages Pittsburgh premiere of "Ma Rainey."
1988
• "Joe Turner" opens on Broadway, wins NYDCC Award.
• Lectures at Carnegie Institute's Man and Ideas series on "Blacks, Blues and Cultural
Imperialism," shocking some by saying growing up black in Pittsburgh was no bed of
roses.
• Appears on Bill Moyers' "World of Ideas" (PBS).
1989
• Pittsburgh Public Theater stages "Fences," its first Wilson play, then "Joe Turner" the
same year.
• "The Piano Lesson" premieres at Yale Rep.
• Named 1990 Pittsburgher of the Year by Pittsburgh Magazine.
1990
• "Piano Lesson" opens on Broadway, wins NYDCC Award and second Pulitzer Prize.
• "Two Trains Running" premieres.
• Second marriage ends; moves to Seattle.
1991
• "Three Plays by August Wilson" published by University of Pittsburgh Press.
1992
• Receives honorary degree from Pitt, speaks at Honors Convocation.
• "Two Trains Running" opens on Broadway, wins NYDCC Award for best American
play.
• Tour of "Piano Lesson" plays Fulton Theater; "Ma Rainey" at Pittsburgh Public.
1994
• Marries Constanza Romero, costume designer.
• "Piano Lesson" filmed on a set in Harmarville and on location in Shadyside,
Downtown, North Side and Squirrel Hill.
• "Two Trains Running" at Pittsburgh Public.
1995
• "Piano Lesson" broadcast on Hallmark Hall of Fame.
"Seven Guitars" premieres.
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1996
• "Seven Guitars" on Broadway, wins NYDCC Award.
• In June, electrifies national convention of non-profit theaters with a controversial call
for separate black companies.
• Revises "Jitney" for professional premiere at Pittsburgh Public Theater.
1997
• Wages public debate in New York City with critic Robert Brustein on status of black
theater.
• Azula Carmen Wilson born, Aug. 27.
• "Seven Guitars" at Pittsburgh Public Theater.
1998
• Teaches playwriting at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire; convenes Dartmouth
conference on African American Theater that establishes African Grove Institute of the
Arts.
• Honored at Edward Albee Theater Conference in Valdez, Alaska.
1999
• Honored at 100th anniversary of Hill District Branch Library with the first high school
diploma awarded by the Carnegie Library.
• Round-table discussion at Public Theater with black playwrights Keith Glover, John
Henry Redwood and his new director, Marion McClinton, who says, "August is Michael
Jackson at this table."
• Named top Pittsburgh cultural power broker, 1998-99, by Post-Gazette.
• "King Hedley II" premieres at Pittsburgh Public Theater in co-production with Seattle
Rep, the first play in the new O'Reilly Theater.
2000
• "Jitney" finally arrives in New York, the first Wilson play to be staged Off-Broadway; it
wins his seventh NYDCC Award.
• Delivers angry historical critique of American racism at Heinz Lecture Series.
2001
• "King Hedley II" on Broadway; first Wilson play not to win NYDCC Award.
2002
• "Gem of the Ocean" premieres in Chicago.
• "Jitney" wins London's Olivier Award for year's best play.
• Move begins to save Wilson's childhood Hill home as historic site.
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2003
• "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" revived on Broadway with Whoopi Goldberg and original
star Charles Dutton.
• "Piano Lesson" at Pittsburgh Public Theater.
• Performs solo autobiographical stand-up, "How I Learned What I Learned," in Seattle.
• In Pittsburgh, receives $250,000 Heinz Award for Arts and Humanities from Teresa
Heinz Kerry.
2004
• "Gem of the Ocean" opens on Broadway after a scramble to secure financing; closes
after 72 performances while drawing full houses.
• Presides at North Side wedding of associate Todd Kreidler and Erin Annarella.
2005
• "Radio Golf" premieres at Yale Rep in March.
• Diagnosed with deadly liver cancer, June 16.
• Revised "Radio Golf" opens in Los Angeles in July.
• Dies Sunday, Oct. 2, at age 60 in Seattle's Swedish Medical Center.
• Funeral, Oct. 8, at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Pittsburgh; buried privately in
Greenwood Memorial Park Cemetery in O'Hara after a procession through the Hill.