Dr. Mike Downing
Kutztown University of PA
March 25, 2009
I
am the web master of AugustWilson.net.
 August Wilson
was an award-winning playwright
who chronicled the African-American experience
through a series of ten plays.
 He
was born Frederick August Kittel, Jr. on April
27, 1945 in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, PA. His
father was a German immigrant named Frederick
August Kittel and his mother was an AfricanAmerican woman named Daisy Wilson.
 Mr.
Wilson is best known for 10 plays. Known as
The Pittsburgh Cycle, each play is set in a different
decade of the 20th Century, chronicling the AfricanAmerican experience.
 Nine
of the ten plays are set in Pittsburgh’s Hill
District, near Wilson’s childhood home. The only
exception is Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which is
located in Chicago.
 Fullerton
Street and Jitney! were both submitted to
the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National
Playwright’s Conference. Both were sent back to
Wilson.
 Wilson
realized that Jitney! (in its original form)
“wasn’t big enough,” and Fullerton Street was, in
Wilson’s own words, “epic and too unwieldy.” So he
sat down and wrote Ma Rainey and sent it to the
O’Neill Conference. They accepted it.
 1904
- Gem of the Ocean (2003) [9]
 1911 - Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1984) [4]
 1927 - Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1982) [2]
 1936 - The Piano Lesson (1986) [5]
 1948 - Seven Guitars (1995) [7]
 1957 - Fences (1983) [3]
 1969 - Two Trains Running (1990) [6]
 1977 - Jitney (1979) [1]
 1985 - King Hedley II (2001) [8]
 1997 - Radio Golf (2005) [10]
 Over
the years, Mr. Wilson has received several
awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for Fences and
The Piano Lesson, a Tony award for Fences, and
several New York Drama Critics awards for Best
Play, among many others.
 Early
in 2005, Mr. Wilson was diagnosed with
liver cancer. He passed away on October 2 of that
year. His legacy lives on, however, through his
plays and the lives he touched.
 Jitney
takes place in 1977. The focus of the play is
on unlicensed cab drivers in the city of Pittsburgh.
 Despite
its flaws, Jitney's is certainly important
reading for anyone who strives to understand the
collective contributions of this important playwright.
 Ma
Rainey’s Black Bottom is set in a Chicago
recording studio in early March 1927. Ma Rainey
has taken a break from touring to record some songs
for Sturdyvant’s studio.
 Throughout
the play, Ma illustrates her
understanding of the fact that the white record
producers only want to trap her voice in that little
box and then they’re done with her.
 Fences
is set in 1957 and features the legendary
Troy Maxson.
 Troy
was in the Negro Leagues but never got a
chance to play in the Major Leagues because he got
too old to play just as the Major Leagues began
accepting black players.
 Fences
is quite similar to Death of a Salesman.
 Joe
Turner's Come and Gone is about a man
named Herald Loomis and his daughter, Zonia.
Herald is looking for his wife, Martha.
 Bynum, the conjure man, casts a spell to re-unite
mother and child.
 Eventually, Martha Pentecost arrives. Mother and
daughter are re-united.
 The
Piano Lesson is set in Pittsburgh in 1936, with
all the action taking place in the house of Doaker
Charles.
 A 137-year-old, upright piano, decorated with
totems in the manner of African sculpture, dominates
the parlor.
 In
a restaurant across the street from West's
Funeral Home and Lutz's Meat Market, West,
Memphis, and Holloway discuss the local scene.
 Holloway philosophizes that there is nothing in the
world but love and death. The men discuss the
lottery and the value of Memphis’ restaurant.
 The play is basically about African Americans
getting what is fair in a white-dominated culture.
 Seven
Guitars is set in 1948. The play begins and
ends after the funeral of one of the main characters,
showing events leading to the funeral in flashbacks.
 The play's recurring theme is the AfricanAmerican male's fight for his own humanity, selfunderstanding and self-acceptance in the face of
personal and societal ills.
 Set
in 1985, King Hedley II tells the story of an
ex-con in Pittsburgh trying to rebuild his life.
 It's been described as one of Wilson's darkest,
telling the tale of a man trying to save $10,000 by
selling stolen refrigerators so that he can buy a video
store.
 As
in all the plays in this cycle, Gem of the Ocean
exudes an irony that demonstrates how it is almost
impossible for poor African Americans to lead
ethical lives in a society that is unwilling to grant
them equal opportunities.
 If black people commit crimes far in excess of
those committed by white people, then it is largely
because their backs are to the wall in an unjust
society.
Golf, August Wilson’s last play, is set in
1997. It is also the last play chronologically in his
famous Pittsburgh Cycle, a series of ten dramas
chronicling African-American life in twentiethcentury America.
 Radio Golf is Wilson’s most direct interrogation of
his audience regarding what it means to be African
American. He ultimately asks whether it is possible
for black culture and heritage to be preserved when it
is integrated into mainstream white society.
 Radio
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
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and
the "Racial" Self. New York: Oxford UP, 1987.
Shannon, Sandra. “The Dramatic Vision of August Wilson.
Washington, D.C.: Howard UP, 1995.
Wilson, August. Fences. New York: Penguin, 1986.
---. Joe Turner's Come and Gone. New York: Penguin,
1988.
---. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. New York: Penguin, 1985.
---. The Piano Lesson. New York: Penguin, 1990.
---. Two Trains Running. New York, Penguin, 1992.