:August Wilson

Wilson was born Frederick August Kittel Jr. in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the fourth of six children. His father, Frederick August Kittel Sr., was a Sudeten German immigrant, who was a baker/pastry cook. His mother, Daisy Wilson, was an African-American woman from North Carolina who cleaned homes for a living.Isherwood, Charles (October 3, 2005), [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/03/theater/newsandfeatures/03wilson.html "August Wilson, Theater's Poet of Black America, Is Dead at 60"], The New York Times. Wilson's anecdotal history reports that his maternal grandmother walked from North Carolina to Pennsylvania in search of a better life. Wilson's mother raised the children alone until he was five in a two-room apartment behind a grocery store at 1727 Bedford Avenue; his father was mostly absent from his childhood. Wilson later wrote under his mother's surname.

The economically depressed neighborhood where he was raised was inhabited predominantly by Black Americans and Jewish and Italian immigrants. Life was tough for the Kittel siblings as they were biracial. August struggled with finding a sense of belonging to a particular culture and did not feel that he truly fit into African-American culture or White culture until later in life. Wilson's mother divorced his father and married David Bedford in the 1950s, and the family moved from the Hill District to the then predominantly White working-class neighborhood of Hazelwood, where they encountered racial hostility; bricks were thrown through a window at their new home. They were soon forced out of their house and on to their next home.{{cite book|last=Little|first=Johnathan|title=Twentieth-Century American Dramatists: Second Series|year=2000|publisher=Gale|location=Detroit, Michigan|isbn=978-0-7876-3137-6|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/twentiethcentury228whea_0}}

The Hill District went on to become the setting of numerous plays in the Pittsburgh Cycle. His experiences growing up there with a strong matriarch shaped the way his plays would be written.{{Cite journal |last=Shannon |first=Sandra G. |date=1991 |title=The Fences They Build: August Wilson's Depiction of African-American Women |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44485235 |journal=Obsidian II |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=1–17 |jstor=44485235 |issn=0888-4412}}

{{external media | width = 210px | float = right | headerimage= 210px | video1 = [http://video.pbs.org/video/2365429059/ American Masters, August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand], PBS, 1:24:39{{cite web | title =American Masters, August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand| publisher =PBS | date =February 20, 2012 | url =http://video.pbs.org/video/2365429059/ | access-date =May 29, 2015}} }}

In 1959, Wilson was one of 14 African-American students at Central Catholic High School but dropped out after one year. He then attended Connelley Vocational High School, but found the curriculum unchallenging. He dropped out of Gladstone High School in the 10th grade in 1960 after his teacher accused him of plagiarizing a 20-page paper he wrote on Napoleon I of France. Wilson hid his decision from his mother because he did not want to disappoint her. At the age of 16 he began working menial jobs, where he met a wide variety of people on whom some of his later characters were based, such as Sam in The Janitor (1985).

Wilson's extensive use of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh resulted in its later awarding him an honorary high school diploma. Wilson, who said he had learned to read at the age of four, began reading Black writers at the library when he was 12 and spent the remainder of his teen years educating himself through the books of Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps, and others.

Wilson knew that he wanted to be a writer, but this created tension with his mother, who wanted him to become a lawyer. She forced him to leave the family home and he enlisted in the United States Army for a three-year stint in 1962, but he was discharged after a year{{Cite web |title=August Wilson {{!}} Encyclopedia.com |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/american-literature-biographies/august-wilson |access-date=2024-01-09 |website=www.encyclopedia.com}} and went back to working various odd jobs as a porter, short-order cook, gardener, and dishwasher.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}}

Frederick August Kittel Jr. changed his name to August Wilson to honor his mother after his father's death in 1965. That same year, he discovered the blues as sung by Bessie Smith, and he bought a stolen typewriter for $10, which he often pawned when money was tight. At 20, he decided he was a poet and submitted work to such magazines as Harper's. He began to write in bars, the local cigar store, and cafes—longhand on table napkins and on yellow notepads, absorbing the voices and characters around him. He liked to write on cafe napkins because, he said, it freed him up and made him less self-conscious as a writer. He would then gather the notes and type them up at home. Gifted with a talent for catching dialect and accents, Wilson had an "astonishing memory", which he put to full use during his career. He slowly learned not to censor the language he heard when incorporating it into his work.

File:PittsburghPaAWH2.jpg at 1727 Bedford Avenue in Pittsburgh]]

Malcolm X's voice influenced Wilson's life and work (such as The Ground on Which I Stand, 1996). Both the Nation of Islam (NOI) and the Black Power movement spoke to him regarding self-sufficiency, self-defense, and self-determination, and he appreciated the origin myths that Elijah Muhammad supported. In 1969 Wilson married Brenda Burton, a Muslim, and became associated with the NOI, though he reportedly did not convert.{{Cite web |date=December 30, 2020 |title=From Allah to Broadway. August Wilson's roots in the Nation of Islam |url=https://nycreligion.info/allah-broadway-august-wilsons-roots-nation-islam/ |access-date=October 3, 2022 |website=A Journey through NYC religions |language=en-US}} He and Brenda had one daughter, Sakina Ansari-Wilson. The couple divorced in 1972.

In 1968, along with his friend Rob Penny, Wilson co-founded the Black Horizon Theater in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. Wilson's first play, Recycling, was performed for audiences in small theaters, schools and public housing community centers for 50 cents a ticket. Among these early efforts was Jitney, which he revised more than two decades later as part of his 10-play cycle on 20th-century Pittsburgh. He had no directing experience. He recalled: "Someone had looked around and said, 'Who's going to be the director?' I said, 'I will.' I said that because I knew my way around the library. So I went to look for a book on how to direct a play. I found one called The Fundamentals of Play Directing {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4X4UAAAAQBAJ|first1=Alexander|last1= Dean |first2=Lawrence |last2=Carra |date=2009 |title=Fundamentals of Play Directing|edition=5th |publisher=Waveland Press |location=Long Grove, IL |isbn=978-1-57766-648-6 }} and checked it out."

In 1976, Vernell Lillie, who had founded the Kuntu Repertory Theatre at the University of Pittsburgh two years earlier, directed Wilson's The Homecoming. That same year Wilson saw Athol Fugard's Sizwe Banzi is Dead, staged at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, the first time he attended professionally produced drama. Wilson, Penny, and poet Maisha Baton then founded the Kuntu Writers Workshop to bring African-American writers together and to assist them in publication and production. Both organizations remain active.

In 1978, Wilson moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota, at the suggestion of his friend, director Claude Purdy, who helped him secure a job writing educational scripts for the Science Museum of Minnesota. In 1980 he received a fellowship for The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. He quit the museum in 1981, but continued writing plays. For three years, he was a part-time cook for the Little Brothers of the Poor. Wilson had a long association with the Penumbra Theatre Company of St. Paul, which was initially funded by a federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) grant and which premiered some of his plays. He wrote Fullerton Street, which has been unproduced and unpublished, in 1980. It follows the Joe Louis/Billy Conn fight in 1941 and the loss of values attendant on the Great Migration to the urban North.

Throughout the 1980s, Wilson wrote the majority of his work including Jitney (1982), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984), Fences (1985), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1986), and The Piano Lesson (1987).

In 1987, St. Paul's mayor George Latimer named May 27 "August Wilson Day". He was honored because he is the only person from Minnesota to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

In 1990, Wilson left St. Paul after getting divorced and moved to Seattle. There he developed a relationship with Seattle Repertory Theatre, which produced his entire 10-play cycle and his one-man show How I Learned What I Learned.

Though he was a writer dedicated to writing for theater, a Hollywood studio proposed filming Wilson's play Fences. He insisted that a Black director be hired for the film, saying: "I declined a White director not on the basis of race but on the basis of culture. White directors are not qualified for the job. The job requires someone who shares the specifics of the culture of Black Americans." The film remained unmade until 2016, when Denzel Washington directed the film Fences, starring Washington and Viola Davis. It earned Wilson a posthumous Oscar nomination.{{cite news|last1=Viagas|first1=Robert|title=Denzel Washington's Fences Film Begins Shooting Today|url=http://www.playbill.com/article/denzel-washington-39-s-fences-film-begins-shooting-today-com-382902|date=April 22, 2016|work=Playbill|access-date=April 25, 2016}}

Wilson received many honorary degrees, including an honorary Doctor of Humanities from the University of Pittsburgh, of which he was a trustee from 1992 until 1995.{{cite news | author=Bruce Steele | title=Remembering August Wilson 1945–2005 | url=http://www.umc.pitt.edu/media/pcc051010/august_wilson_2005OCT10.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060902071459/http://www.umc.pitt.edu/media/pcc051010/august_wilson_2005OCT10.html | work=The Pitt Chronicle | publisher=The University of Pittsburgh | date=October 10, 2005 | archive-date=September 2, 2006| access-date=October 1, 2008}}

Wilson maintained a strong voice in the progress and development of the (then) contemporary Black theater, undoubtedly taking influences from the examples of his youth, such as those displayed during the Black Arts Movement. One of the most notable examples of Wilson's strong opinions and critiques of what was Black theater's state in the 1990s, was the "On Cultural Power: The August Wilson/Robert Brustein Discussion" where Wilson argued for a completely Black theater with all positions filled by Blacks. Conversely, he argued that Black actors should not play roles not specifically Black (e.g., no Black Hamlet). Brustein heatedly took an opposing view.

In 2005, Wilson's final installment in his ten-part series The Century Cycle, titled Radio Golf, opened. It was first performed in 2005 by the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut and had its Broadway premiere in 2007 at the Cort Theatre. It would become known as Wilson's final work.{{Cite news | last =Brantley | first =Ben | title =In the Rush to Progress, the Past Is Never Too Far Behind | newspaper = The New York Times | date = May 9, 2007 | url =https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/theater/reviews/09radio.html | access-date = March 15, 2017}}

Although Wilson's work is not formally recognized within the literary canon of the Black Arts Movement, he was certainly a product of its mission, helping to co-found the Black Horizon Theatre in his hometown of Pittsburgh in 1968. Situated in Pittsburgh's Hill District, a historically and predominantly Black neighborhood, the Black Horizon Theatre became a cultural hub of Black creativity and community building.{{Cite web|url=https://www.chronicle.pitt.edu/story/august-wilson-and-black-horizon-theatre|title=August Wilson and Black Horizon Theatre {{!}} Pitt Chronicle {{!}} University of Pittsburgh|website=www.chronicle.pitt.edu|first=Jill King |last=Greenwood|date=March 16, 2015|access-date=March 23, 2019}} As a playwright of what is considered the Post–Black Arts Movement, Wilson inherited the spirit of BAM, producing plays that celebrated the history and poetic sensibilities of Black people. His iconic Century Cycle successfully tracked and synthesized the experiences of Black America in the 20th century, using each historical decade, from 1904 to 1997, to document the physical, emotional, mental, and political strivings of Black life in the wake of emancipation.{{Cite web|url=http://www.august-wilson-theatre.com/plays.php|title=August Wilson, Pulitzer winning playwright: Plays|website=www.august-wilson-theatre.com|access-date=March 23, 2019}}

Wilson's best-known plays are Fences (1985) (which won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award), The Piano Lesson (1990) (a Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and Joe Turner's Come and Gone.

Wilson stated that he was most influenced by "the four Bs": blues music, the Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges, the playwright Amiri Baraka and the painter Romare Bearden. He went on to add writers Ed Bullins and James Baldwin to the list. He noted:

{{blockquote|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. From Romare Bearden I learned that the fullness and richness of everyday life can be rendered without compromise or sentimentality.}}

He valued Bullins and Baldwin for their honest representations of everyday life.

Like Bearden, Wilson worked with collage techniques in writing: "I try to make my plays the equal of his canvases. In creating plays I often use the image of a stewing pot in which I toss various things that I'm going to make use of—a black cat, a garden, a bicycle, a man with a scar on his face, a pregnant woman, a man with a gun." On the meaning of his work, Wilson stated:

{{blockquote|I once wrote this short story called "The Best Blues Singer in the World", and it went like this—"The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, and Balboa was drowning." End of story. That says it all. Nothing else to say. I've been rewriting that same story over and over again. All my plays are rewriting that same story.}}

Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle,{{cite web|url=https://www.biography.com/news/august-wilson-pittsburgh-cycle-century-cycle-plays-summary|title=August Wilson's 'Pittsburgh Cycle' Plays|date=June 3, 2020 }} also often referred to as his Century Cycle,{{cite web|url=http://www.marintheatre.org/productions/fences/fences-august-wilsons-century-cycle|title=10 Plays, 100 Years – Playwright August Wilson Reveals the History of a Community (From the Playbill)}} consists of ten plays, nine of which are set in Pittsburgh's Hill District (the other being set in Chicago), an African-American neighborhood that takes on a mythic literary significance like Thomas Hardy's Wessex, William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County, or Irish playwright Brian Friel's Ballybeg. The plays are each set in a different decade and aim to sketch the Black experience in the 20th century and "raise consciousness through theater" and echo "the poetry in the everyday language of Black America".{{cite journal| url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/839/the-art-of-theater-no-14-august-wilson| journal=The Paris Review| title=August Wilson, The Art of Theater No. 14| author= Bonnie Lyons, George Plimpton| date=Winter 1999 | volume=Winter 1999| issue=153}} His writing of the Black experience always featured strong female characters and sometimes included elements of the supernatural. In his book, he wrote "My mother's a very strong, principled woman. My female characters . . . come in a large part from my mother."{{Cite book|last=Wilson|first=August|title=The Ground on which I Stand|publisher=Theatre Communications Group|year=2001|isbn=978-1559361873|pages=151}}

As for the elements of the supernatural, Wilson often featured some form of superstition or old tradition in plays that came down to supernatural roots.{{Cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/august-wilson-the-ground-on-which-i-stand-august-wilsonbiography-and-career-timeline/3683/|title=August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand {{!}} Biography and Timeline {{!}} American Masters {{!}} PBS|date=January 28, 2015|website=American Masters|language=en-US|access-date=April 8, 2020}} One of his plays well known for featuring this is The Piano Lesson. In the play, the piano is used and releases spirits of the ancestors. Wilson wanted to create such an event in the play that the audience was left to decide what was real or not. He was fascinated by the power of theater as a medium where a community at large could come together to bear witness to events and currents unfolding.

Wilson told The Paris Review:{{blockquote|I think 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.}}

Although the plays of the cycle are not strictly connected to the degree of a serial story, some characters appear (at various ages) in more than one of the cycle's plays. Children of characters in earlier plays may appear in later plays. The character most frequently mentioned in the cycle is Aunt Ester, a "washer of souls". She is reported to be 285 years old in Gem of the Ocean, which takes place in her home at 1839 Wylie Avenue, and 349 in Two Trains Running. She dies in 1985, during the events of King Hedley II. Much of the action of Radio Golf revolves around the plan to demolish and redevelop that house, some years after her death. Aunt Ester is a symbolic and recurring figure that represents the African-American struggle. She is "not literally three centuries old but a succession of folk priestesses... [s]he embodies a weighty history of tragedy and triumph".{{Cite web|url=https://www.post-gazette.com/ae/theater-dance/2009/11/09/August-Wilson-s-mythic-character-Aunt-Ester-explored-in-theater-festival/stories/200911090252|title=August Wilson's mythic character Aunt Ester explored in theater festival|website=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|first=Christopher|last=Rawson|language=en|date=November 9, 2009|access-date=April 8, 2020}} The plays often include an apparently mentally impaired oracular character (different in each play)—for example, Hedley Sr. in Seven Guitars, Gabriel in Fences, Stool Pigeon in King Hedley II, or Hambone in Two Trains Running.{{citation needed|date=August 2022}}

Chicago's Goodman Theatre was the first theater in the world to produce the entire 10-play cycle, in productions which spanned from 1986 to 2007. Two of the Goodman's productions—Seven Guitars and Gem of the Ocean—were world premieres.{{cite news| url=http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/stage/24839663-421/story.html | title=Court Theatre stages August Wilson's 'Seven Guitars' |first= Mary|last= Houlihan|date= January 8, 2014|work=Chicago Sun-Times}} Israel Hicks produced the entire 10-play cycle from 1990 to 2009 for the Denver Center Theatre Company.{{cite news|last=Weber|first= Bruce|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/theater/08hicks.html |title=Israel Hicks, Director of August Wilson's Cycle, Dies at 66|newspaper=The New York Times|date= July 7, 2010|access-date= July 8, 2010}} Geva Theatre Center produced all 10 plays in decade order from 2007 to 2011 as August Wilson's American Century. The Huntington Theatre Company of Boston has produced all 10 plays, finishing in 2012. During Wilson's life he worked closely with The Huntington to produce the later plays. Pittsburgh Public Theater was the first theater company in Pittsburgh to produce the entire Century Cycle, including the world premiere of King Hedley II to open the O'Reilly Theater in Downtown Pittsburgh.{{cite web|url=http://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/the-final-installment-of-august-wilsons-epic-pittsburgh-cycle-premieres-at-the-public/Content?oid=1340845|title=The final installment of August Wilson's epic Pittsburgh Cycle premieres at the Public|first=Robert|last=Isenberg|date=October 2, 2008| newspaper=Pittsburgh City Paper}}

TAG – The Actors' Group, in Honolulu, Hawaii, produced all 10 plays in the cycle starting in 2004 with Two Trains Running and culminating in 2015 with Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. All shows were Hawaii premieres, all were extremely successful at the box office and garnered many local theatre awards for the actors and the organization. The Black Rep in St. Louis and the Anthony Bean Community Theater in New Orleans have also presented the complete cycle.

In the years after Wilson's death the 10-play cycle has been referred to as The August Wilson Century Cycle{{cite book|title=August Wilson Century Cycle|first=August|last=Wilson|year=2007|publisher=Theatre Communications Group|isbn=978-1559363075}} and as The American Century Cycle.{{cite web|url=http://www.openculture.com/2015/05/listen-to-playwright-august-wilsons-american-century-cycle-in-its-entirety-10-free-plays.html|title=Listen to Playwright August Wilson's American Century Cycle in Its Entirety: 10 Free Plays}}

Two years before his death in 2005, Wilson wrote and performed an unpublished one-man play entitled How I Learned What I Learned about the power of art and the power of possibility. This was produced at New York's Signature Theatre and directed by Todd Kreidler, Wilson's friend and protégé. How I Learned explores his days as a struggling young writer in Pittsburgh's Hill District and how the neighborhood and its people inspired his cycle of plays about the African-American experience.{{Cite web|title=How I Learned What I Learned|url=http://publictheater.culturaldistrict.org/production/40795/how-i-learned-what-i-learned|work=publictheater.culturaldistrict.org|access-date = September 24, 2015}}

Wilson was married three times. His first marriage was to Brenda Burton from 1969 to 1972. They had one daughter, Sakina Ansari, born 1970. In 1981, he married Judy Oliver, a social worker; they divorced in 1990. He married again in 1994 and was survived by his third wife, costume designer Constanza Romero, whom he met on the set of The Piano Lesson. They had a daughter, Azula Carmen Wilson. Wilson also was survived by siblings Freda Ellis, Linda Jean Kittel, Richard Kittel, Donna Conley and Edwin Kittel.

Wilson reported that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer in June 2005 and been given three to five months to live. He died at age 60 on October 2 of that year at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, and was interred at Greenwood Cemetery, Pittsburgh, on October 8.{{cite book|url=|chapter=Wilson, August #13712|title=Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons|edition=3rd|first1=Scott|last1= Wilson|first2=Gregory W. (forward)|last2=Mank|date=2016|publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc.|isbn=978-0786479924|oclc=948561021}} He reportedly requested a "Black funeral" at Saint Paul Cathedral, but permission for a non-Catholic funeral was not granted by the diocese. A memorial service was instead held at the University of Pittsburgh.

File:August Wilson Theatre NYC.jpg

The childhood home of Wilson and his six siblings, at 1727 Bedford Avenue in Pittsburgh, was declared a historic landmark by the State of Pennsylvania on May 30, 2007.{{cite news | url=http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_510207.html | title=State Memorializes August Wilson's Childhood Home | last=Associated Press | date=May 31, 2007 | work=Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | access-date=October 3, 2008 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071114160729/http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_510207.html | archive-date=November 14, 2007 }} On February 26, 2008, Pittsburgh City Council placed the house on the List of City of Pittsburgh historic designations. On April 30, 2013, the August Wilson House was added to the National Register of Historic Places.{{cite web|url=http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/13000254.htm|title=Wilson, August, House|website=www.cr.nps.gov}}

In Pittsburgh, there is an August Wilson Center for African American Culture. The center includes a permanent exhibition on Wilson's life in Pittsburgh's Hill District, "August Wilson: A Writer's Landscape."{{Cite web |title=Explore and Visit \ The August Wilson African American Cultural Center |url=https://awaacc.org/explore-and-visit/ |access-date=2023-12-04 |website=The August Wilson African American Cultural Center |language=en-US}}

On October 16, 2005, fourteen days after Wilson's death, the Virginia Theatre in New York City's Broadway Theater District was renamed the August Wilson Theatre. It is the first Broadway theatre to bear the name of an African-American.{{cite news | author=Jesse McKinley | title=Theater Is to Be Renamed for a Dying Playwright | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/nyregion/02theater.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=September 2, 2005 | access-date=December 21, 2008}} The theatre has run many shows, including Jersey Boys, Groundhog Day, and Mean Girls.{{Cite web|url=http://www.playbill.com/venue/august-wilson-theatre-vault-0000000162|title=August Wilson Theatre|website=Playbill|language=en|access-date=April 8, 2020}}

In 2007, the August Wilson Monologue Competition was founded by Kenny Leon and Todd Kreidler. High school students, supported by professional actors, mentors, local drama teachers and others learn a monologue from one of Wilson's plays, and perform it in front of a professional jury. This tribute to Wilson's work is an official contest in many American cities including, as of 2020, Atlanta, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Dallas, Greensboro, Los Angeles, New Haven, New York, Norfolk, Pittsburgh, Portland, San Diego, and Seattle. The national winner of the contest gets the chance to perform on Broadway.{{cite web |url=https://www.pcs.org/events/august-wilson-monologue-competition |title=August Wilson Monologue Competition |author= |date=2020 |website=Portland Center Stage at the Armory |access-date=June 11, 2023}}

In Seattle, Washington, along the south side of the Seattle Repertory Theatre, the vacated Republican Street between Warren Avenue N. and 2nd Avenue N. on the Seattle Center grounds has been renamed August Wilson Way.{{cite news | author=Kathy Mulady | title=Visions For a New Seattle Center Being Made Public | url=http://www.seattlepi.com/local/319432_center12.html | work=The Seattle Post-Intelligencer | date=June 12, 2007 |access-date=October 5, 2008}}

In September 2016, an existing community park near his childhood home was renovated and renamed August Wilson Park.{{cite web|url=http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2016/08/08/newly-renovated-august-wilson-park-unveiled-in-hill-district/|title=Newly-Renovated August Wilson Park Unveiled In Hill District|first=Sarah|last=Arbogast|publisher=CBS Pittsburgh|date=August 8, 2016}}

In 2020, the University Library System at the University of Pittsburgh acquired Wilson's literary papers and materials to establish the August Wilson Archive.{{Cite web |title=August Wilson Archive {{!}} University of Pittsburgh Library |url=https://augustwilson.library.pitt.edu/ |access-date=2023-12-04 |website=augustwilson.library.pitt.edu}}{{cite press release|url=https://www.pittwire.pitt.edu/news/university-pittsburgh-library-system-acquires-archive-renowned-playwright-august-wilson|title=University of Pittsburgh Library System Acquires Archive of Renowned Playwright August Wilson|publisher=University of Pittsburgh|date=October 29, 2020|access-date=October 29, 2020}}{{cite news|url=https://www.post-gazette.com/ae/theater-dance/2020/10/29/August-Wilson-University-of-Pittsburgh-buys-literary-archive-Pittsburgh-Cycle-Pulitzer/stories/202010280135|title=August Wilson's literary archive is coming home|first=Marylynne|last=Pitz|newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|date=October 29, 2020|access-date=October 29, 2020}}

In 2021, the United States Postal Service honored Wilson with a Forever stamp featuring him as part of the Black Heritage series of stamps. It was designed by Ethel Kessler with art from Tim O'Brien.{{Cite web|title=August Wilson Stamp {{!}} USPS.com|url=https://store.usps.com/store/product/buy-stamps/august-wilson-S_480004#moreinfofooter|access-date=January 6, 2021|website=store.usps.com}}

On January 7, 2025, Wilson received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.{{cite web |last1=Cox |first1=Gordon |title=Playwright August Wilson's Broadway Legacy Topped With a Posthumous Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame |url=https://variety.com/2025/film/focus/august-wilson-walk-of-fame-1236262539/ |website=Variety |access-date=January 7, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250107113411/https://variety.com/2025/film/focus/august-wilson-walk-of-fame-1236262539/ |url-status=live |archive-date=January 7, 2025 |date=January 6, 2025}}

Other awards and honors by year:

• 1985: New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best American Play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
• 1986: Whiting Award for Drama
• 1986: Guggenheim Fellowship for Drama & Performance Art{{cite encyclopedia |title=August Wilson |encyclopedia=Britannica |date=July 26, 2024 |author= |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/August-Wilson |access-date=August 28, 2024}}
• 1987: Artist of the Year by Chicago Tribune
• 1988: Literary Lion Award from the New York Public Library
• 1988: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement{{cite web|title= Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement |website=www.achievement.org|publisher=American Academy of Achievement|url=https://achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/}}
• 1988: New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play – Joe Turner's Come and Gone
• 1990: Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts and Distinguished Pennsylvania Artists
• 1990: New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play – The Piano Lesson
• 1991: Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame award
• 1991: St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates{{cite web|url=http://www.slu.edu/libraries/associates/award.html|title=Saint Louis Literary Award – Saint Louis University|access-date=July 26, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160823003924/http://www.slu.edu/libraries/associates/award.html|archive-date=August 23, 2016|url-status=dead}}{{cite web |url=http://lib.slu.edu/about/associates/literary-award |title=Recipients of the Saint Louis Literary Award |author=Saint Louis University Library Associates |access-date=July 25, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160731082313/http://lib.slu.edu/about/associates/literary-award |archive-date=July 31, 2016 |url-status=dead }}
• 1992: American Theatre Critics' Association Award – Two Trains Running
• 1992,2007: New York Drama Critics Circle Citation for Best American Play – Two Trains Running
• 1992: Clarence Muse Award
• 1996: New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play – Seven Guitars
• 1999: National Humanities Medal
• 2000: New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play – Jitney
• 2001: Outer Critics Circle Award for John Gassner Playwriting Award – Fences
• 2002: Olivier Award for Best new Play – Jitney
• 2004: The 10th Annual Heinz Award in Arts and Humanities{{cite web|url=http://www.heinzawards.net/recipients/august-wilson|title=The Heinz Awards :: August Wilson}}
• 2004: The U.S. Comedy Arts Festival Freedom of Speech Award
• 2005: Make Shift Award at the U.S. Confederation of Play Writers
• 2006: American Theatre Hall of Fame.{{cite news|url=https://www.post-gazette.com/ae/theater-dance/2007/01/31/Theater-Hall-of-Fame-honors-August-Wilson-seven-others/stories/200701310196|title=Theater Hall of Fame honors August Wilson, seven others|newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|first=Christopher|last=Rawson|date=January 31, 2007|access-date=February 12, 2014}}
• 2013: Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival – The Piano Lesson

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book |last=Hartigan |first=Patti |date=2023 |title=August Wilson: A Life |url= |location=New York |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=9781501180668 |oclc=1347429411}}

{{Commons category|August Wilson}}

• [http://www.augustwilson.library.pitt.edu/ August Wilson Archives, University of Pittsburgh]
• [http://www.august-wilson-theatre.com August Wilson Theatre Broadway]
• [http://www.augustwilsoncenter.org/ August Wilson Center for African American Culture]
• [http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/0809/jt_archive_program.asp#one Berkeley Rep profile of Wilson and works] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120223113545/http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/0809/jt_archive_program.asp#one |date=February 23, 2012 }}
• [http://www.whiting.org/awards/winners/august-wilson#/ The Whiting Foundation Profile]
• [http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/theater-dance/2014/02/09/August-Wilson-s-11th-play-needs-to-come-home/stories/201402090046 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article]
• {{IMDb name|0933025}}
• [https://augustwilson.pitt.edu/ojs/augustwilson August Wilson Journal]

• {{Charlie Rose view|1028}}
• [http://billmoyers.com/content/august-wilson/ August Wilson on Blackness], Bill Moyers, A World of Ideas, October 20, 1988.
• {{cite journal| url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/839/the-art-of-theater-no-14-august-wilson| journal=The Paris Review| title=August Wilson, The Art of Theater No. 14| author= Bonnie Lyons, George Plimpton| date=Winter 1999 | volume=Winter 1999| issue=153}}
• [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1700922 NPR Intersections: August Wilson, Writing to the Blues], March 1, 2004, audio interview (6 mins).
• [http://www.believermag.com/issues/200411/?read=interview_wilson Interview with Wilson], The Believer, November 2004.
• [http://www.bu.edu/today/node/9495 Putting Up Fences, article with video], BU Today, September 17, 2009.

• [https://nytimes.com/2005/09/02/nyregion/02theater.html "Theater Is to Be Renamed for a Dying Playwright"], The New York Times, September 2, 2005.
• [http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05276/581786.stm Pittsburgh Post-Gazette obituary], October 3, 2005
• [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/03/theater/newsandfeatures/03wilson.html "August Wilson, Theater's Poet of Black America, Is Dead at 60"], The New York Times, October 3, 2005.
• Margaret Busby, [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/oct/04/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries "August Wilson – Distinguished black American playwright who reclaimed the stories of his people"], The Guardian, October 4, 2005.

{{PulitzerPrize DramaAuthors 1976-2000}}

{{American Book Awards}}

{{Pittsburgh Cycle}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, August}}

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