'It creates a communal nature'

 

“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 theater 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 in Pittsburgh on April 27, 1945 Wilson wrote 20 plays, highlighted by the 10-play Pittsburgh (or Century) Cycle..  Each of the 10 plays is set in a different decade of the 20^th Century, depicting both comic and tragic aspects of the black experience.

 

Over his career, cut short by his death from liver cancer, he won 8 New York Drama Critics Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes (for Fences and The Piano Lesson) and a Broadway Tony Award, also for Fences, which then was made into an award-winning movie.

 

Wilson, who died in 2005, said his aim with The Century Cycle was to sketch the black experience and "raise consciousness through theater.”  He was fascinated by the power of theater as a medium to bring community together to bear witness to life.  

 

And, he added, “I think my plays offer white Americans a different way to look at black Americans.”