“Piano Lesson” opens on Broadway, wins NYDCC Award and second Pulitzer Prize.
“Joe Turner” opens on Broadway, wins NYDCC Award.
“Fences” opens on Broadway, wins NYDCC Award and Wilson’s first Pulitzer Prize, grosses $11 million in its first year (Broadway record for a non-musical).
“Ma Rainey” premieres at Yale Repertory Theatre, moves right to Broadway, wins his first New York Drama Critics Circle best play award.
“Jitney” Is staged by Allegheny Repertory Theatre in Pittsburgh: cast includes Sala Udin, Milt Thompson, Montae Russell, Ron Pitts and Curtis Porter, directed by Bob Johnson. The National Playwrights Conference at O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut accepts “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”; meets O’Neill chief Lloyd Richards who goes on to…
Vernell Lillie directs his “The Homecoming” for Kuntu Repertory Theater. Wilson sees his first professional play, Athol Fugard’s “Sizwe Bansi Is Dead,” about a black man struggling with identity under apartheid, at Pittsburgh Public Theater.
Co-founds Black Horizon Theater with Rob Penny, Sala Udin and others.
After the death of his biological father, Frederick Kittel; changes his name to August Wilson. Wilson buys his first typewriter ($20); begins writing poetry.
August was the only black student in his freshman class at Central Catholic High School; almost daily threats and abuse drive him away. Connelley Vocational High School proves unchallenging. Wilson Dropped out of Gladstone High School 10th grade when a teacher accuses him of plagiarizing a 20-page paper on Napoleon.…
Born Frederick August Kittel to Daisy Wilson, an African American whose parents came from North Carolina, and Frederick Kittel, a red-haired baker who emigrated from Bohemia, Germany at 10. Family lives in two rooms (later four rooms) at 1727 Bedford Ave. in the Hill District. The fourth child and oldest…