August Wilson Short Biography

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In the Mid 1940s, On April 27, 1945, an inspiring poet and playwright was born. August Wilson wasn’t originally born as ‘August Wilson’, he was born as Frederick August Kittel, Jr. August Wilson was the fourth child out of six children and the oldest son. He was born in Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Frederick August Kittel, Sr. a German immigrant and baker and Daisy Wilson, a cleaning woman of African descent. He had a rather humble childhood. He was mainly raised by his mother in an apartment located above a grocery store, while his father was rarely in the picture. In the 1950s, his mother and father divorced and his mother was remarried. They relocated to a white neighborhood, where they faced much malevolence and racism. …show more content…
That same year, he purchased his very first typewriter and began writing poetry. At 20, he decided he was a poet and had submitted his poetry to magazines such as Harper's. He had began to write in bars, the local cigar stores, and cafes. He would write them longhand on table napkins and on yellow notepads, absorbing the voices and characters around him. He would like to write on cafe napkins because he said, “ it freed him up and made him feel less self-conscious as a writer”. After writing, he would gather the notes and would type them at home. Wilson had an “astonishing memory” which gifted him the talents for catching dialect and accents, which he put to use during his career. Malcolm X’s voice had influenced his life and work such as The Ground on Which I Stand. Both Nation of Islam and the Black Power spoke to him regarding self-sufficiency, self-defense, and self-determination. He appreciated the origin myths that Elijah Muhammad supported. In the late 60’s, Wilson was drawn to theater and was inspired by Black Arts Movement and Civil Rights Movement. Wilson had joined a group of poets, educators, and artists, who were called the Centre Avenue Poets Theater Workshop. In the group, Wilson met a friend and collaborator, Rob Penny, where in 1968, they co-founded the Black Horizon Theater. This theater was a community-based, Black Nationalist Theater Company …show more content…
Paul, Minnesota, where he joined the Penumbra Theater and became a more concentrated playwright. He also became the company member of Penumbra Theater. The first production of his work at Penumbra was a play, which was based on his poem cycle Black Bart and the Sacred Hills. In 1979, Wilson had wrote, Jitney, which was considered his first play. He had received a fellowship from Minneapolis Playwright Center in 1980, and in the following year, he married his second wife, Judy Oliver. In Wilson’s third century cycle play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which had been premiered at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in 1982, was to gain him widespread recognition. These plays were the first to open a series known as the Pittsburgh Cycle. It had consisted of ten plays, each set in a different decade of the 20th century. The cycle had gained renown for its portrayal of black culture, politics, and experience. Wilson noted that, “ I wanted to place this culture on stage in all its richness and fullness and to demonstrate and endeavor and through profound moments of our history in which the larger society has thought less of us than we have thought of ourselves.” All of the plays were set in Hill District, where August grow up, except Ma Rainey. In that same year, Wilson had met Lloyd Richards, the African-American artistic director of Yale Repertory Theatre, who had directed Wilson’s first six plays on broadway. They had a partnership that had lasted until

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