August Wilson
August Wilson
August Wilsonwas an American playwright whose work included a series of ten plays, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. Each is set in a different decade, depicting the comic and tragic aspects of the African-American experience in the 20th century...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth27 April 1945
CityPittsburgh, PA
CountryUnited States of America
belief bigger disbelief
Have a belief in yourself that is bigger than anyone's disbelief.
happiness laughter hands
All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.
believe reality theatre
I believe in the American theatre. I believe in its power to inform about the human condition, its power to heal ... its power to uncover the truths we wrestle from uncertain and sometimes unyielding realities.
inspirational strength forgiveness
Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.
army army-and-navy became fact lieutenant liked
The fact that he was a self-made man, that he was a lieutenant in the army and became the emperor, I liked that,
deed gin hire lay men money time tip walk work
Walk in there. Tip my hat. Lay my money down on the table. Get my deed and walk on out. This time I get to keep all the cotton. Hire me some men to work it for me. Gin my cotton. Get my seed.
hate piano
You look up one day and you hate the whiskey, and you hate the women, and you hate the piano. But that's all you got. You can't do nothing else. All you know how to do is play that piano. Now, who am I? Am I me? Or am I the piano player?
generate mental running
We are running out of energy, mental energy, ... We need to generate something new, for ourselves.
america call case cosby household housing strictly white
Most of black America is in housing projects, without jobs, living on welfare. And this is not the case in 'The Cosby Show,' because all the values in that household are strictly what I would call white American values.
dialogue generally respect robert rope seen sitting terrible tremendous walked wilson
I've seen some terrible plays, but I generally enjoy myself. One play I walked out of, I have a tremendous respect for the author. That was Robert Wilson, something called 'Network,' which consisted of Wilson sitting on a bunk, the dialogue of the movie 'Network' looped in while a chair on a rope went up and down.
guys kinds knock matter sonny
My hero when I was 14 was Sonny Liston. No matter what kinds of problems you were having with your parents or at school, whatever, Sonny Liston would go and knock guys out, and that made it all right.
center found room sent since sitting sixteen won
In 1980 I sent a play, 'Jitney,' to the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, won a Jerome Fellowship, and found myself sitting in a room with sixteen playwrights. I remember looking around and thinking that since I was sitting there, I must be a playwright, too.
although art culture learned love political resonate specific stories themes time universal wonderful work
From Borges, those wonderful gaucho stories from which I learned that you can be specific as to a time and place and culture and still have the work resonate with the universal themes of love, honor, duty, betrayal, etc. From Amiri Baraka, I learned that all art is political, although I don't write political plays.
black bringing experience giving life space stage
I write for myself, and my goal is bringing that world and that experience of black Americans to life on the stage and giving it a space there.