October 14, 2014
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Speaker: CHRIS RAWSON, Senior Theater Critic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
August Wilson was a prolific playwright who eloquently chronicled African American life. A Pittsburgh native, his most celebrated achievement is a 10-play cycle often referred to as the Pittsburgh Cycle, where each play is set in a different decade of the 20th century. All but one of the plays is set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District neighborhood, where Wilson was raised. Each play depicts the love, lives, comedies, triumphs and tragedies of the African American experience.
Wilson was the first African American to have two plays running simultaneously on Broadway and is one of seven American playwrights to win two Pulitzer Prizes.
Book: “August Wilson: Pittsburgh Places in His Life and Plays” by Laurence A. Glaswco and Christopher Rawson
A guide to historic sites and places that figure in the life and plays of August Wilson. Most of these are set in the Hill District, where Wilson was born and grew up. The book includes photographs of the sites as well as fold-out maps for self-conducted walking tours.
About Chris Rawson: Rawson’s main discipline is as a theater critic. From 1983 to 2009, he was full-time theater critic and theater editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, covering theater not just in Pittsburgh but also as much as possible in New York, London and the Canadian theater festivals. In 1984, he started the annual Post-Gazette Performer of the Year Award, now (2013) in its 30th year. In 2009, he semi-retired, continuing as that paper’s part-time senior theater critic. He also appears as the weekly critic for KDKA-TV.
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