#August Wilson Century Cycle

[raymmax]

Notes on Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - 03142024

Let’s recall that Gertrude Pridgett, aka Ma Rainey, did not exist in a vacuum. The play is set in an era known as the roaring 20’s, and much of the behavior we see in the play reflects common behaviors of the era. The excessive makeup Ma Rainey wore, the short-cropped hairdos, the loose-fitting cloth were all reminiscent of the “flappers” of the post-WW1 era. “In the 1920s, flappers broke away…

[msdsweets-blog]

Celebrating Black History Month

Greetings,

Just want to add my first Sims 4 CC creation to tumblr. Forgot to do this earlier.

Enjoy Black History Month and beyond with Black Theatre Posters celebrating the August Wilson Century Cycle chronicling 100 years of the African-American experience beginning in 1900 through 2000. There are ten plays representing each decade.

August Wilson (1945 - 2005) remains one of the most prolific African-American playwrights and artists whose plays have appeared on Broadway, garnering numerous awards, starring such noted actors as Phylicia Rashad, Denzel Washington, Mary Alice, Keith David, Tonya Pinkins, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Leslie Uggams, Samuel L. Jackson, Courtney B. Vance, Angela Basset, Harry Lennix, Ruben Santiago Hudson, Whoopi Goldberg, Charles "Roc" Dutton, S. Epatha Merkerson, Lou Myers, Lawrence Fishburn and Viola Davis, just to name a few.     

August Wilson is the first and only African-American artists to have a Broadway theatre re-named in his honor.  The Virginia theatre was renamed the August Wilson Theatre shortly after his passing.  

What line or scene do you remember from your favorite August Wilson play?   Feel free to share them here.   (Having seen almost all of the B'way runs, I must say that Phylicia Rashad's performance as Aunt Ester in Gem of the Ocean sticks out strongest for me.) 

Life has been wild for me since my initial upload January 2023.  Looking forward to regular uploads this year and in the future.  Enjoy.  Also note, my content will ALWAYS BE FREE!!

Just Keep Simmin', Simmin', Simmin'!!!

[toiletpotato]

Read some of August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle (Century Cycle)

For a long time, the August Wilson Theatre used to be the only theatre on Broadway named after a Black person. Currently, only three out of forty-one theatres on Broadway are named after Black people, two of which were renamed in 2022 (The James Earl Jones Theatre and the Lena Horne Theatre respectively). The August Wilson Theatre was only renamed in 2005, just under two decades ago.

August Wilson was a very notable Black American playwright. One of his most notable series of works continues to be his Century Cycle (sometimes known as the Pittsburgh Cycle). It is a series of plays that focuses on the Black community in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (for nine plays) and Chicago, Illinois (for one of them) over the course of a century. Two of the works you may have heard of are Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Fences as they have received film adaptations.

(Interestingly, James Earl Jones was in the original Broadway cast of Fences. His performance as Troy Maxson is absolutely masterful. You can watch a clip here.)

One of the better ways to experience plays is through watching them live or recorded. However, many plays are published so that they can be read as well! (In order to perform them, rights must be acquired).

These are contemporary plays, so the language is easier to understand than older plays that one might encounter in an English class. I have listed them in chronological order of when they were written. In parentheses, I have listed the year written and the year set.

If you click on a title, it will take you to a PDF.

Jitney (1982/1970s)

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984/1920s)

Fences (1985/1950s)

Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1986/1910s)

The Piano Lesson (1987/1930s)

Two Trains Running (1990/1960s)

Seven Guitars (1995/1940s)

King Hedley II (1999/1980s)

Gem of the Ocean (2003/1900s)

Radio Golf (2005/1990s)

I'm still trying to find PDFs for Seven Guitars, King Hedley II, and Gem of the Ocean. If anyone happens to have PDFs on hand I would really appreciate it if you could add them!!

I will leave you all with some quotes that Mr. Wilson told the Paris Review (interview here), that he and Rob Penny "founded the Black Horizons Theater in Pittsburgh with the idea of using the theater to politicize the community or, as we said in those days, to raise the consciousness of the people." (emphasis mine). He also told them that he thinks that "my plays offer (White Americans) a different way to look at Black Americans. For instance, in Fences they see a garbageman, a person they don't really look at, although they see a garbageman every day. By looking at Troy's life, White people find out that the content of this Black garbageman's life is affected by the same things – love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty. Recognizing that these things are as much part of his life as theirs can affect how they think about and deal with Black people in their lives." (emphasis mine).

Thank you for taking the time to read this post, have a theatrical time of day!

[cozyaliensuperstar7]

blex_media:

The entire Washington family is involved in the film adaptation of August Wilson’s acclaimed play 'The Piano Lesson', making it a true family affair. ⁠ ⁠ Pauletta Pearson Washington proudly declared to Deadline at the Telluride Film Festival where the film premiered, “All my babies are involved in this.” Her son, Malcolm Washington, directed the film and co-wrote the screenplay with Virgil Williams. Her eldest son, John David Washington stars in the film, while her daughter, Olivia Washington also stars in the film. Olivia shares the same role with her mother, playing the character Mama Ola at different ages.⁠ ⁠ Adding to the family’s involvement, Katia Washington, Pauletta's other daughter, serves as an executive producer of the film. Meanwhile, Pauletta’s husband, Denzel Washington, is a producer of The Piano Lesson. Denzel, along with his producing partner Todd Black, has committed to bringing Wilson’s entire ten-part American Century Cycle to the screen, with Fences, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and now The Piano Lesson already adapted.⁠ ⁠ We love to see it! For full details, click link in bio.⁠ ⁠ ⁠

[grandhotelabyss]

Favorite plays? Best plays? Do many overlap?

I've pretty much confined myself to the classics, so yes, they overlap, almost comically so.

Ancients: I need to reread the Oresteia—I haven't actually read it since a one-sitting rapture by Vellacott's old Penguin Classic translation on a Sunday night in my teens—but as a founding myth of civilization, it doesn't get any better. Then Sophocles's Theban plays, then Medea and Bacchae for Euripides. Never quite got Aristophanes and have yet even to read his most famous comedy. The Romans, the medievals: pretty much a blank, despite what Shakespeare took from Terence and Seneca. The East: pretty much a blank, though Kalidasa and a volume of Noh plays sit somewhere on my shelves.

Shakespeare: Hamlet is best—as in the best play ever written and the big bang of literary modernity—then Lear. Among the less-discussed, my favorite is The Winter's Tale. My current novel is obsessed with The Tempest. I have a less intimate relationship with the comedies and histories than with the tragedies and romances, but do admire Much Ado and Twelfth Night and the Henriad. Among non-Shakespearean early modern English plays, I've adored The Duchess of Malfi.

Modern European: Is Goethe's Faust a play, exactly? It's not not a play. It rivals Hamlet on the one side, Ulysses on the other. Then Ibsen, for the differently Faustian Peer Gynt and Brand, and for The Wild Duck—the greatest bourgeois tragedy, Arthur Miller be damned—the play that marks the transition from the smug naturalism of A Doll's House and Ghosts and An Enemy of the People to the chastened symbolism of The Master Builder and Hedda Gabbler and When We Dead Awaken. Shamefully, there are plays in the realist cycle I haven't read, though, and I still need to get to Emperor and Galilean. As for other dramatists, Chekhov's fine—I like The Cherry Orchard but somehow missed Three Sisters—and Strindberg still awaits my attention.

Modern British: Wilde and Shaw, Shaw and Wilde! Anarchist aestheticism vs. socialist realism in perhaps their best and purest forms, a double-helixed locus classicus. Salomé, The Importance of Being Earnest; Man and Superman, Major Barbara. After them, who? More Irish: Yeats's symbolic ritual drama, Synge's vernacular pageant (The Playboy of the Western World—so good), and, among our contemporaries, By the Bog of Cats. Beckett is fine, Endgame more interesting than Godot. Among the modern English, I never quite got Pinter; Stoppard, Shaw's heir, interests me more, Arcadia being the best I've read or seen. And then, if we can stand in her blast radius, Sarah Kane, more for 4.48 Psychosis than for Blasted.

Modern American: We owe it all to O'Neill even if he's uneven, like Dreiser among the novelists. I like Strange Interlude, if only for the novelty, and of course Long Day's Journey into Night. Still need to read The Iceman Cometh. Tennessee Williams is best—A Streetcar Named Desire is the great American play to go with Moby-Dick as the great American novel and Leaves of Grass as the great American poem for a star-spangled gay-male trifecta—and then August Wilson, more for Joe Turner than for Fences, though I still need to read the whole Century Cycle. Arthur Miller: overrated, as I've implied.

I'll leave you to compile the shadow-list of my obvious omissions; it's terrifying when you start thinking about how much you haven't read.

[lboogie1906]

Kenny Leon (born February 10, 1957) is a Tony Award-winning Broadway and film director. His Broadway credits include the revival of Children of a Lesser God, the Tupac musical Holler If You Hear Me, A Raisin in the Sun starring Denzel Washington (Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play and Best Revival of a Play), The Mountaintop starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, Stick Fly produced by Alicia Keys, August Wilson's Fences (which garnered ten Tony nominations and won three Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Play), Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf, as well as A Raisin in the Sun starring Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. His recent television work includes "Hairspray Live!", and "The Wiz Live!" on NBC. Awards include the 2016 "Mr. Abbott" Award, and the 2010 Julia Hansen Award for Excellence in Directing by the Drama League of New York. Before co-founding True Colors Theatre Company, he served 11 years as Artistic Director of The Alliance Theatre, where he produced the premieres of Disney's Elaborate Lives: The Legend of Aida, Pearl Cleage's Blues for an Alabama Sky and Alfred Uhry's The Last Night of Ballyhoo. Other directorial credits include Alicia Keys's World Tour, Toni Morrison's opera Margaret Garner, the world premiere of Flashdance The Musical, and the complete August Wilson Century Cycle at the Kennedy Center. He is a sought-after motivational speaker that has done acting and theatre workshops at universities and corporate offices around the country, South Africa and Ireland. He has directed in the UK, and extensively throughout the US, including Chicago's Goodman Theatre, Boston's Huntington Theatre, Baltimore's Center Stage, Los Angeles' Center Theatre Group, and New York's Public Theatre. He is a graduate of Clark Atlanta and is an honorary Ph.D. recipient of Clark Atlanta and Roosevelt Universities and has served as the Denzel Washington Chair at Fordham University. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence https://www.instagram.com/p/Cohf6rNrg-q/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[itwasallstaged]

Week of September 6th: Fences

Fences is the first and only play I’ve read in August Wilson’s Pittsburg Cycle(Century Cycle). The play has a slow start in my opinion for a scene or two but it serves the mundane truth the play seeks to present. But once it gets going the play is non-stop raking you over the coals. The shining light of this play as I mentioned is the authenticity it showcases through its characters. It’s truly more than I feel I can comprehend at the moment. The heartbreaks feel so real, so intense, and every second the stakes keep rising. It’s a play that is clearly a Herculean undertaking to act in. It makes me wonder if the play is so reflective of its time and culture that it will become harder to perform in the future. Or if these experiences are so universal that human beings will relate forever. Either way it's clear to me that Fences, in my opinion, will always be one of the most staple, heart-aching, and truthful plays in American Literature

[veggiesforpresident]

anyway while it is fictionalized i think august wilson's century cycle does a much better job of actually centering black stories and black lives through the various decades and actually making us care about the individual people involved.

[kevintumbles]

‘A Quick 5’ with Actor Jacqueline E. G. Youm in August Wilson’s ‘King Hedley II’ at Dominion Stage

August Wilson’s “King Hedley II” will be performed by Dominion Stage starting October 21, 2002. It is being directed by Rikki Howie and produced by Christine Farrell. The executive producer is Rebecca J. Harris. This acclaimed drama by August Wilson is the ninth of his ten-play American Century Cycle. Set in the Pittsburgh Hill District […] See original article at: https://mdtheatreguide.com/2022/10/a-quick-5-with-actor-jacqueline-e-g-youm-in-august-wilsons-king-hedley-ii-at-dominion-stage/

[catmint1]

The more music you have in the world, the fuller it is.

August Wilson, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom [The Century Cycle #3]

[raymmax]

Some notes on King Hedley II for DCPL 12.01.2022

Some notes on King Hedley II for DCPL 12.01.2022

These are just some random thoughts from my notes and later, our discussion. Wilson dedicated the play to his mentors and colleagues, to Rob Penny and Nicholas Flournoy and Chawley Williams, all cofounders with Wilson of the Centre Ave Poets and later, the Black Horizons Theatre. Williams, a bit older, was a mentor to a teenage August Wilson, and some sources say Williams’ somewhat chaotic life…

[stratfordeast]

AUGUST WILSON IN THE NEW YORK TIMES | KING HEDLEY II

[strazcenter]

Artists We Love: August Wilson

Artists We Love: August Wilson #fromtheblog

For many, the only relationship they have with August Wilson is through movies based on his plays: The Piano Lesson, Oscar®-winning Fences and most recently Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, starring Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman, both nominated for Academy Awards® in their roles. Those movies are just a slice of the breadth of work the playwright produced before he died of liver cancer at…

[dennisjerz]

Radio Golf ( #AugustWilson #CenturyCycle, 10 of 10)

Radio Golf ( #AugustWilson #CenturyCycle, 10 of 10)

August Wilson’s Century Cycle >  Spoiler-free scene breakdown Premiered: 2005; Broadway 2007 Setting: 1997; office of Bedford Hills Redevelopment Co. Small cast — just 5 actors. I.i (Office of Bedford Hills Redeveloment, Inc.) Mame is unimpressed with the tin ceiling Harmond is excited about, saying it won’t do for a campaign office. He wants to put his campaign office in the Hill District,…

[cartermagazine]

Today In History Playwright August Wilson, author of a cycle of plays, each set in a different decade of the 20th century, about African American life, won Pulitzer Prizes for two of them: Fences and The Piano Lesson. Wilson won the Pulitzer Prize for ‘The Piano Lesson’ on this date April 17, 1990. CARTER™️ Magazine carter-mag.com #wherehistoryandhiphopmeet #historyandhiphop365 #cartermagazine #carter #augustwilson #blackhistorymonth #blackhistory #history #staywoke https://www.instagram.com/p/CcdImtYLdZv/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=