August Wilson is one of America’s great playwrights. He lived in Pittsburgh from his birth in 1945 to 1978, when he moved to St. Paul, MN, and later to Seattle, WA. He died in 2005 and is buried in Pittsburgh. Wilson composed 10 plays chronicling the African American experience in each decade of the twentieth century––and he set nine of those plays in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. He turned this place and these lives into classics of the American stage. “August Wilson: Pittsburgh Places in His Life and Plays” is a concise, fully-illustrated introduction to Wilson and to key sites in his life and art. It enriches those reading or seeing the plays, inspires others to do so, and educates all to respecting, caring for, and preserving the Pittsburgh places that shaped, challenged, and nurtured Wilson’s creative legacy. Kimberly C. Ellis and Sala Udin introduce essays by Christopher Rawson on Wilson’s career and by Laurence Glasco on the Hill District. All the Pittsburgh area places important in Wilson’s life and plays are included, and each copy is autographed by one of the authors.
