“A
novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act.
While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the
audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it
at the same time. I find that thrilling.” – August Wilson
Born
on April 27, 1945, Wilson was an African-American playwright whose work was
highlighted by a series of 10 plays called The Pittsburgh or Century Cycle. Among them were Fences, which won both a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Tony – and
was made into an Academy Award winning movie; and The Piano Lesson, which also won a Pulitzer for Drama and the New
York Drama Critics Award. Each play is
set in a different decade of the 20th Century, depicting the comic
and tragic aspects of the Black experience.
Wilson said his aim was to
"raise consciousness through theater.”
He was fascinated by the power of theater as a medium where a community
at large could come together to bear witness to events and the unfolding currents
of society. Wilson had the remarkable
ability to make everything he said and wrote crackle with enthusiasm and life,
and any aspiring writer or actor who listened to his talks would always walk
out fired up about writing or acting and ready to get busy trying to emulate
what he shared. 
“In
creating plays," he said, "I often use the image of a stewing
pot in which I toss various things that I’m going to make use of—a black cat, a
garden, a bicycle, a man with a scar on his face, a pregnant woman, a man with
a gun." The results were as tasty
as tasty can be.
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