American playwright August Wilson (1945–2005), in New York in 2000
August Wilson had a magnificent ear. His supreme gift as a playwright was for transforming African American vernacular into crystalline poetry onstage. His sense for language was also evident in how he chose to be known. Growing up in the largely Black, poor, and working-class Hill District of Pittsburgh, dreaming of the sort of literary glory enjoyed by his idols Richard Wright and Langston Hughes, the young man must have known that “Frederick Kittel Jr., Great Black Writer” somehow didn’t have the right ring to it. At the age of 20, he rejected being the namesake of his father, a white, German-born, alcoholic baker who was, the playwright would later recall, “a sporadic presence” in his life. “August” was originally his middle name. “Wilson” was the maiden name of his Black mother, Daisy. Put the two together, and you had a moniker exuding steadfast wisdom, a name with gravitas, a name commensur
Gifted writers can create dialog that sounds like the way people really talk. But only the rarest of writers can make those words into poetry. The late August Wilson, whose plays include one for each decade of the 20th century, created stories epic in scope, tragic in circumstance, and yet still somehow hopeful. The characters may not be able to get what they dream of. But there is a sense of triumph in the plays themselves, the fact that the stories are told with such profound respect and compassion.
Advertisement
After August Wilson died in 2005, his friends and former colleagues established a student competition in his memory, inviting young actors to inhabit his characters and speak their words by presenting monologues. It began at just one school, then expanded nationwide. The documentary Giving Voice follows the 2018 competitors as they talk about discovering their love for theatrical performance and work with coaches and teachers. And then we follow the finalists from acro
How August Wilson s words led an LA teen to Pittsburgh and CMU mdjonline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mdjonline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
George C. Wolfe,
IN 1929, two years after the setting of
Ma Rainey
’s Black Bottom and about seven months after Rainey, the “Mother of the Blues,” made her last recordings, another stylish Southern blues singer the “Queen” of the genre cut a song with her new husband. On “When the Levee Breaks,” Memphis Minnie looses her guitar on Kansas Joe McCoy, who starts to sing:
If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s going to break
If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s going to break
And the water gonna come in, have no place to stay
The Seattle roots of Chadwick Boseman’s final movie
With ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,’ the ‘Black Panther’ star achieved his long-standing dream to appear in a drama by local theater legend August Wilson. By Misha Berson, Crosscut
Share: Chadwick Boseman in Ma Rainey s Black Bottom. (Netflix)
In the fall of 2004, a striving young theater artist grabbed the chance to meet one of his idols.
A friend had invited Chadwick Boseman, then a relatively unknown actor, to watch a Broadway rehearsal of Seattle-based playwright August Wilson’s newest drama,
Gem of the Ocean. Boseman eagerly accepted.
During a rehearsal break, a nervous Boseman spoke briefly with the illustrious but sometimes shy Wilson, telling him how much he loved and was inspired by the dramatist’s work.