About August Wilson

• Biography and Timeline: A biographical sketch and timeline of Wilson’s life, from the August Wilson Center for African American Culture. Includes a re-cap of his Cycle plays.
• Call and Response: Q&A with Production Dramaturg Faedra Chatard Carpenter: Discussing what it is that makes Wilson one of America’s greatest dramatists.
  

Wilson in His Own Words

• August Wilson, Writing to the Blues: Audio interview with Wilson from NPR.
• Interview with August Wilson: From The Paris Review, with interviewer Bonnie Lyons.
• Why the Decade Cycle?: Wilson discusses his interest in culture as history, noting the importance of the blues. As published in a 1992 edition of The New York Times.

Wilson at CENTERSTAGE

• In Motion Towards the Inevitable: Covering Wilson’s Cycle and CENTERSTAGE’s history with the Cycle, as previously seen in our Radio Golf program.
• Past Productions: List of Wilson’s plays that CENTERSTAGE has presented.
  

Other Related Articles:

• ‘I Ain’t Singing Nothing Without My Coca-Cola!’: Women and the Politics of Food in the Work of August Wilson: Professor Psyche Williams-Forson examines the ways in which women utilize food in Wilson’s works; this includes a discussion of Ma Rainey and her Coca-Cola. The full version of the piece provided in our current Ma Rainey program.
• Hearing Our Sacred Book: August Wilson found a strong influence in the Blues. Here, production dramaturg Faedra Chatard Carpenter traces the Blues from 19^th-century roots in the American South and discusses their comprehensive expression of human experience, as well as the range of subject matter and style.
• Musings on a Metaphoric Stammer: production dramaturg Faedra Chatard Carpenter takes a look at the stammering in blues songs, and ponders the meaning of Sylvester’s stammer in Ma Rainey.