SEVEN KING
GUITARS HEDLEY II
AUDIENCE GUIDE
WRITTEN AND COMPILED BY Taylor M Wycoff
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Anonymous, Leonard Hirsch, Bill & Judy Garrett, April Blankfort,
Kamaya Jane & Diane Zeps, in honor of their mother Elaine Lipinsky,
San Diego Commission for Arts & Culture, The County of San Diego
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SECTION 1- ABOUT THESE PRODUCTIONS
From the Dramaturg ..................................................................................... 3
About the Playwright, August Wilson ........................................................... 4
About The Play: Seven Guitars
Synopsis ............................................................................................. 5
Characters .......................................................................................... 6
Production History .............................................................................. 7
About The Play: King Hedley II
Synopsis ............................................................................................. 8
Characters .......................................................................................... 9
Production History .............................................................................. 10
SECTION 2- THEMES & TOPICS
August Wilson’s Century Cycle .................................................................... 9
August Wilson’s Four B’s ............................................................................. 12
August Wilson’s Hill...................................................................................... 14
The Ground On Which I Stand ..................................................................... 16
Cygnet Theatre Company values the feedback of patrons on the content and format of its Audience Guides.
We would appreciate your comments or suggestions on ways to improve future Audience Guides. Comments
may be directed to Taylor M. Wycoff by email at [email protected].
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SECTION 1
ABOUT THESE PRODUCTIONS
FROM THE
DRAMATURG
TAYLOR M WYCOFF
Working on an August Wilson play is a gift to any dramaturg. Sometimes
referred to as America’s Shakespeare, Wilson’s plays are a beautiful blend
of reality and fiction, history and mysticism, language and music. Working
on Cygnet’s 2013 production of Gem of the Ocean was an incredible
journey to which I owe much of my dramaturgical passion (and in fact, was
the very first production I ever had the pleasure of dramaturging for
Cygnet!) And ever since then, I’ve been itching to dive back into Wilson’s
Hill District. Enter Artistic Director Sean Murray and Associate Artist
Director Rob Lutfy, and their masterful craftsmanship in pairing Seven
Guitars and King Hedley II together for this season’s repertory productions
and thankfully, my itch has been scratched (for now). And while Wilson’s
work undoubtedly needs no companion to be understood or enjoyed, I’ve
pulled together a few items that I hope will deepen your understanding and
appreciation for this playwright’s masterful works.
In this guide, you’ll find information on August Wilson’s life and legacy and
a breakdown of both productions, including a plot synopsis, character
listing, a history of each production and any notable awards they may have
received. My favorite section, the “Themes & Topics” includes some
information pertaining to both pieces, such as where they sit in relation to
the other plays in the Century Cycle, August Wilson’s key influences, a
brief history of Pittsburgh’s Hill District (which is the setting for all but one of
the plays in the Century Cycle), and a brief discussion of his
groundbreaking TCG speech “The Ground On Which I Stand,” which had a
profound and lasting impact on the American theatre landscape. And as
with all our guides, in the end you’ll find a few post-show discussion
questions to consider as you’re leaving the theatre, and a few suggested
resources for those still eager to learn more.
3
ABOUT THESE PRODUCTIONS
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
AUGUST WILSON (April 27, 1945, Pittsburgh, PA—October 2, 2005, Seattle, WA) was born Frederick August
Kittel on April 27, 1945 in the Hill District community of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His mother, Daisy Wilson was
an African American cleaning woman, and his mostly absent father Frederick Kittel, was a German immigrant
and baker. In 10th grade, after experiencing racial bullying and false accusations of plagiarism from his teacher,
he decided to take his education into his own hands. Unbeknownst to his mother, he dropped out of school and
instead spent his school hours educating himself at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. He read everything from
sociology, to anthropology to theology and fiction, and with the purchase of a Bessie Smith record he discovered
and fell in love with the music of the blues. Following his father’s death in 1965, a 20-year-old Frederick Kittel
adopted the pen name “August Wilson” as an homage to his mother.
Seeking out the poetry in everyday life, he spent time in restaurants, barbershops, and on the streets of The Hill.
It was these voices, which reflected on their lives against the backdrop of economic decline and social upheaval
that Wilson would later draw on to craft some of the most unforgettable characters in the canon of American
theatre. In 1968, with writer Rob Penney and a group of friends who were part of Pittsburgh’s Black Power
Movement, he started the Black Horizon Theatre. Their mission was to raise consciousness through the voice
of theatre.
It wasn’t until a 1976 production of Athol Fugard’s Sizwe Bansi is Dead, however, that Wilson began to view
theatre as something other than entertainment. Fugard, the South African playwright/activist, used his plays to
portray the horrors of South Africa’s racist apartheid system, while crafti9ng its political and social issues in
clear, compelling language through unforgettable characters. August Wilson saw the power of the theatre to
inform and move an audience to action while touching their emotions, and in 1978 he moved from Pittsburgh to
St. Paul, Minnesota and began to write drama seriously.
His first major success came in 1982 when the National Playwrights Conference at the O’Niell Theatre Center
accepted Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. This also marked his introduction to Lloyd Richards, who went on to direct
Wilson’s first six Broadway plays. In 1985, Ma Rainey opened in New York and won the New York Drama
Critics Award. This success prompted Wilson to give himself the mission to chronicle, decade by decade, the
African-American story in the 20th century, or what we now know as his 10-play Century Cycle. Over the course
of his career, he earned two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, a Tony Award for best play, and numerous other awards
and recognitions.
4
ABOUT THE PLAY: SEVEN GUITARS
SYNOPSIS
Seven Guitars takes place in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in 1948. In Louise’s backyard, six friends gather after the
funeral of their friend and aspiring musician, Floyd “schoolboy” Barton, whose blues guitar career had just been
on the verge of taking off. As they discuss the mysteries of Floyd’s death and the black-hatted angels who
seemed to appear at the grave site to bear him away, the sounds of his hit recording, “That’s Alright’” carry the
play back in time to piece together the final days of his life.
Just released from jail on vagrancy charges, Floyd has returned to woo his ex-girlfriend, Vera. After a song he
recorded months before becomes an unexpected hit, Floyd is asked to return to Chicago to make another
record. He is intent on bringing Vera up with him despite the fact that he left her a year and a half ago for
another woman (a fact which Vera is quick to remind him of). As the play continues, we get to know Louise, the
landlady of the tenant house and Hedley, the deeply spiritual Haitian man who believes that Buddy Boldon will
deliver to him his fathers so money so he can buy a plantation where “the white man not going to tell me what to
do no more.” We also meet Canewell, a harmonica player and one of Floyd’s closest friends who is reluctant to
return to Chicago after having served 30 days in jail himself (for “laziness”), and Red Carter, another of Floyd’s
close friends who plays drums in the band and is proud to announce the birth of his son, Mister. Act I
culminates with the group listening to an historic fight between boxers Joe Louis and Billy Conn, the arrival of
Louise’s niece, Ruby, and a lively discussion about roosters which has a shocking foreshadowing effect when
Hedley delivers a fiery monologue and ritualistically slaughters one in front of the other characters.
In Act II, Floyd continues on his mission to get his music career back on the fast track but struggles to get his
guitar back from the pawnshop and to convince the others to join him on his quest back to Chicago. When he
does finally get himself a guitar, lands a gig at the Blue Goose, “the number-one blues club in Pittsburgh,” and
scrounges up the funds to return to Chicago with Vera, it seems his time has finally come. However when
Canewell reads about a local robbery in the latest newspaper and later discovers a large sum of money hidden
in the backyard garden, it’s clear where Floyd’s turn of luck came from. Hedley appears just in time to witness
Floyd counting his stack of bills. Ecstatic that Buddy Bolden has finally come to him with his father’s money, a
drunken Hedley attempts to retrieve Floyd’s spoils and the mystery of the musician’s death is revealed.
RUNNING TIME: Approx. 3 hours, including intermission.
PERFORMANCE RATING: PG-13 for strong language, adult content, and brief violence.
5
ABOUT THE PLAY: SEVEN GUITARS
CHARACTERS
LOUISE:
The independent and lively landlady of the tenant house where the play takes place.
She has given up on romance after her former lover abandoned her; she shies away
from Hedley’s romantic advances.
CANEWELL:
A quick-tempered harmonica player and one of Floyd’s closest friends. After being
jailed in Chicago, he is unwilling to return and help Floyd pursue his music career.
RED CARTER:
Another of Floyd’s closest friends and a drummer in Floyd’s band.
VERA:
Floyd’s ex-girlfriend. She is reluctant to trust Floyd again after he abandoned her for
another woman. She is strong willed and not easily swayed by Floyd’s romance.
HEDLEY:
An older man who rents a room at Louise’s house. His intense spirituality guides his
actions and thoughts. He is openly critical and suspicious of the white society that has
oppressed him, and despite his tuberculosis, refuses to enter a sanitarium.
FLOYD BARTON:
An ambitious blues musician and singer of the hit single “That’s All Right.” He was
recently released from jail, where he served 90 days for vagrancy. He hopes to
convince his bandmates and his former girlfriend, Vera, to return with him to Chicago to
pursue his musical career.
RUBY:
Louise’s niece. She arrives at her aunt’s house in Pittsburg from Alabama after two
men had a deadly dispute over her.
PRODUCTION HISTORY
PRODUCTIONS
Seven Guitars premiered on January 21, 1995 at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. Starring Jerome PrestonBates as Floyd Barton and Viola Davis as Vera, the production was directed by Walter Dallas. The production
moved to Boston and opened at the Huntington Theatre Company on September 15, 1995 under the direction of
Lloyd Richards. Seven Guitars had its Broadway premiere at the Walter Kerr Theatre on March 28, 1996. The
production was directed by Lloyd Richards and started Keith David as Floyd Barton and Viola Davis as Vera.
AWARDS & PRAISE
Seven Guitars won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play in 1996. It was nominated for the
1995 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as the 1996 Drama Desk Award for Best Play and the Tony Award for
Best Play.
6
ABOUT THE PLAY: KING HEDLEY II
SYNOPSIS
King Hedley II takes place in two tenement backyards in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in 1985 and tells the story of an
ex-con’s attempt to rebuild his life. King has just returned from prison serving a sentence for killing the man who
gave him the scar on his face. Living with his mother, Ruby, and his wife, Tonya, King dreams of opening his
own video store with his lifelong pal and partner in crime (literally), Mister.
The play opens on King planting a packet of seeds in the small corner of the yard while he and Ruby chat. Soon
after, Mister arrives and we learn of King and Mister’s primary source of income (selling stolen refrigerators) and
Ruby’s on-again, off-again boyfriend Elmore is set to arrive back into town any day. When Mister admits that he
wants to take his half of the money out of the pot they started together to open a video store, King desperately
plans to rob a jewelry store to get the remaining funds. While they manage to successfully pull off the robbery,
they return short having been unable to break into the owner’s safe. Later, having wanted a baby since he’s first
love Neesi passed away, King is ecstatic to hear that Tonya is pregnant. Tonya, on the other hand, gives a
moving speech about her reluctance to raise another child in a world that constantly threatens the lives of black
youth. And upon learning of King’s resurfacing criminal activities and unable to persuade him to act otherwise,
warns him not to do any of it for her.
Meanwhile, Elmore and Ruby settle into each other and announce their engagement to the group. But in a
heated argument, Elmore reveals that King’s namesake, King Hedley, was not in fact his father as Ruby would
have had him believe. In fact, King is the son of Leroy, whose murder by Elmore sent Ruby to live with her Aunt
Louise back in 1948. In the final scene, still shocked and enraged by the news of his true father, King
challenges Elmore to a game of crap, declaring “…we got some unfinished business to take care of… the last
one cost me seven years. Like I say, this one ain’t gonna cost me nothing.” When the game escalates to
violence and Elmore pulls a gun on King, Ruby runs into the house to retrieve her own derringer. Just as
Elmore lowers his gun, unable to shoot King, Ruby reemerges and accidentally shoots her own son.
RUNNING TIME: Approx. 3 hours, including intermission.
PERFORMANCE RATING: PG-13 for strong language, adult content, and violence.
7
ABOUT THE PLAY: KING HEDLEY II
CHARACTERS
KING (KING HEDLEY II): Has a vicious scar running down the left side of this face. Spent seven years in
prison. Strives to live by his own moral code. Thirties.
RUBY:
King’s mother, former big band singer who recently moved back to Pittsburgh. Sixties.
MISTER:
King’s best friend since grade school and sometimes business partner. Thirties.
ELMORE:
Ruby’s longtime, but sporadic flame. A professional hustler. Sixties.
TONYA:
King’s wife of a few years. Thirties.
STOOL PIGEON:
King’s next-door neighbor. The Hill’s spiritual and practical truthsayer. Late Sixties.
PRODUCTION HISTORY
PRODUCTIONS
King Hedley II premiered at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre on December 11, 1999, in association with
Sageworks, in a co-production by the Pittsburgh Public Theatre and Seattle Repertory Theatre. The production
subsequently opened at Seattle Repertory Theatre on March 13, 2000. Directed by Marion Isaac McClinton,
this production then opened at Huntington Theatre Company in Boston on May 24, 2000 with the same artistic
team and cast (with the exception of the original music composer and production stage manager). The
production then moved to the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles on September 5, 2000, The Goodman Theatre
in Chicago on December 11, 2000, and eventually the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in
Washington, D.C. on February 25, 2001. It was produced by Sageworks, Benjamin Mordecai, Jujamcyn
Theatres and Manhattan Theatre Club, in association with Kardana-Swinsky Productions. King Hedley II
transferred to Broadway at the Virginia Theater on May 1 2001.
AWARDS & PRAISE
King Hedley II was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Drama in 2000, and received 6 Tony Award nominations including
Best Play. Viola Davis received the Drama Desk award for her performance of Tonya, and the play received an
additional 4 nominations, including Best Play.
8
SECTION 2
THEMES & TOPICS
AUGUST WILSON’S CENTURY CYCLE
Considered by many to be America’s Shakespeare, Pulitzer-Prize winning
playwright August Wilson created an unprecedented 10-play Century Cycle- one
play set in each decade of the 20th century—chronicling the joys, struggles, history,
and culture of African Americans. Each is an intimate story of complex characters
trying to find their way around and through the social issues of the time. Themes of
struggle with personal and cultural identity, familial relationships, knowing your
place in history and musical threads resonate throughout. Here is a decade-bydecade guide to Wilson’s groundbreaking work:
GEM OF THE OCEAN (SET IN 1904)
Guided by 285-year-old sage Aunt
Ester, a free man named Citizen
Barlow journeys into the collective
memory of the Middle Passage, the
torturous transatlantic voyage to the
Americas that newly enslaved Africans
were forced to endure. Citizen’s
journey into the past is difficult, but it
allows him to navigate the no-man’s
land between slavery—still a living
memory at the turn of the century—
and freedom.
Grandison Phelps III, Laurence Brown, and
Brenda Phillips in Cygnet’s 2013 production of
Gem of The Ocean.
JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE (1911) This mystical play is set during the
Great Migration, when many members of the first generation of African-American
born free left the rural South for the urban North, only to find that prejudice and loss
pursued them there. Herald Loomis is on a pilgrimage to find his wife, but the other
wanderers he encounters at a Pittsburgh boardinghouse are looking for something
too: the sense of identity which slavery stripped from them and their ancestors.
MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM (1927) A tense Chicago recording session
exposes the exploitation of African-American musicians in the white-dominated
commercial music industry. Successful, demanding blues singer Ma Rainey battles
her producers and her band members, including the talented and ambitious
trumpeter Levee. Wilson depicts the psychological consequences of African9
THEMES & TOPICS
AUGUST WILSON’S CENTURY CYCLE
Mark Christopher Lawrence, Grandison Phelps
III, Antonio TJ Johnson, and Laurence Brown in
Cygnet’s 2010 production of The Piano Lesson.
THE PIANO LESSON (1936) Boy
Williams, a timber cutter, travels north
from Mississippi to retrieve a piano
from his sister Berniece. Boy Willie
wants to sell the piano to finance a
farm, but Berniece wants to keep it
because it is a family heirloom carved
with the story of their enslaved
ancestors. The siblings must decide
not only the fate of the piano but also
how to come to terms with their
family’s painful history.
SEVEN GUITARS (1948) Beginning
just after the funeral of a gifted blues
guitarist, Seven Guitars is a memory
play that depicts the events leading up
to Floyd “Schoolboy” Barton’s
untimely death. Released from jail
after serving time for the crime of
“worthlessness,” Floyd tries to retrieve
his guitar and get to Chicago to make
Franklin and Ro Boddie in Cygnet’s 2016
another hit record. He believes he is Yolanda
production of Seven Guitars.
on the brink of a career breakthrough,
but bad decisions and worse luck prevent him from leaving Pittsburgh.
FENCES (1957) In the backyard of
their Pittsburgh home, garbage
collector Troy Maxson and his family
wrestle with the fallout from his failed
baseball career and the betrayal and
disappointment stemming from Troy’s
pursuit of the American Dream.
Wilson
explores
father-son
relationships, marital infidelity, and the
Patrick Kelly and Antonio TJ Johnson in Cygnet’s
dangers of self-delusion in this
2008 production of Fences.
depiction of the rise and fall of a tragic
everyman.
10
THEMES & TOPICS
AUGUST WILSON’S CENTURY CYCLE
TWO TRAINS RUNNING (1969) Regulars at a soul food diner examine life in the
wake of the death of Malcolm X. The Hill District is changing—the diner is for sale,
and no one can escape the question of whether or not to assimilate into mainstream
white culture. Looking at the Civil Rights movement of the sixties, this play details
the uncertain future promised to African Americans at the time.
JITNEY (1977) The working-class employees at a community cab company face the
government-sanctioned demolition of the abandoned storefront they use as a cab
station. The play celebrates the creative, community-oriented survival strategies of
an inner-city neighborhood as it copes with the destabilizing effects of the passage
of time and world that wants to tear down the inner city for redevelopment.
Ro Boddie, Antonio TJ Johnson, Grandison
Phelps III, Milena Phillips, Laurence Brown, and
Yolanda Franklin in Cygnet’s 2016 production of
King Hedley II.
KING HEDLEY II (1985) A sequel to
Seven Guitars, King Hedley II
explores
the
devastating
consequences of African-American
disenfranchisement during the boom
times of the Reagan administration.
Just released from prison, King
Hedley II plants a garden and joins his
community in the search for
redemption and security in the midst
of confusion, regret, loss, and
senseless violence.
RADIO GOLF (1997) Aunt Ester, the spiritual leader of the Pittsburgh’s Hill District,
has presided over the Century Cycle as an embodiment of African-American
History. In this final installment of Wilson’s profound series, Harmond Wilks is an
African-American real estate developer whose most lucrative deal yet will require
demolishing the house of Aunt Ester. As Harmond considers the deal, he realizes
that he will have to choose between honoring his heritage and pursuing financial
and political success.
Sources:
• “Teaching August Wilson: An Interactive Guide for Educators” by The August Wilson
Education Project (http://www.wqed.org/augustwilson/home)
• “Seven Guitars Play Guide” by the Actors Theatre of Louisville
(https://actorstheatre.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Seven-Guitars-Play-Guide.pdf)
11
THEMES & TOPICS
AUGUST WILSON’S FOUR B’S
As a playwright, August Wilson worked in the style of a collagist. He scribbled his
ideas on napkins, or whatever was handy, then pulled the various pieces together
into a cohesive drama. His characters voices emerged from lines of dialogue he
imagined and from bits of conversations he overheard, oftentimes many years
before. His work was also influence by what are commonly referred to as Wilson’s
Four B’s:
“What I saw was black
life, presented on its
own terms, on a grand
and epic scale, with all
its richness and fullness,
in a language that was
vibrant and which, made
attendant to everyday
life, ennobled it, affirmed
its value, and exalted its
presence… It defined
not only the character of
black American life, but
also it’s conscience.”
-August Wilson on artist and
activist Romare Bearden
“My interest in Baraka
comes from the sixties
and the Black Power
movement. So it’s more
for Baraka’s political
ideas, which I loved and
still am an exponent of.
[…]
He had an
influence
on
my
thinking. [His] poetry in
particular.”
–August Wilson on writer and
activist Amiri Baraka
ROMARE BEARDEN
Romare Bearden was an African American
artist who grew up at the height of New York
City’s Harlem Renaissance. While he found
great success as a painter and dedicated
civil rights activist, he is best known for his
vibrant collage works which fused depictions
of Harlem life with images and impressions
of the American South. Much like Wilson’s
plays, Bearden’s work gives the sense of a
cultural narrative, spanning generations and
expressing
the
African
American
experience.
Bearden’s Mill Hand’s Lunch Bucket,
which inspired August Wilson’s Joe
Turner’s Come and Gone.
AMIRI BARAKA
Amiri Baraka was an African American poet,
activist and scholar. Born Everettet LeRoi Jones
in Newark, New Jersey, he spent three years in
the U.S. Air Force, before joining the Beat
movement in Greenwich Village. After the
assassination of Malcolm X, he took the name
Amiri Baraka and became involved in Black
Nationalist poetry and literature scenes, and later
identified himself as a Marxist. He achieved wide
acclaim for his play The Dutchman, which presented a racially charged
confrontation between a beautiful but cruel white woman and a naïve black man in a
New York City subway car. Wilson was drawn to Baraka’s political poetry and
12
THEMES & TOPICS
AUGUST WILSON’S FOUR B’S
“I am fascinated by the
way Jorge Luis Borges,
the short story writer,
tells a story. I’ve been
trying to write a play the
way he writes a story.
He tells you exctly what
is going to happen, even
though the outcome
seems improbably […]
And he proceeds to tell
the story, and it seems
like it’s never going to
happen. And then you
look up, without even
knowing, and there it is.”
-August Wilson on writer
Jorge Luis Borges
“My greatest influence
has been the blues.
And that’s a literary
influence, because I
think the blues is the
best literature that we
as black Americans
have. […] Blues is the
bedrock of everything I
do. All the characters
in my plays, their ideas
and their attitudes, the
stance that they adopt
in the world, are all
ideas and attitudes that
are expressed in the
blues.”
JORGE LUIS BORGES
Jorge Luis Borges was one of
the most prominent writers and
intellectuals of the 20th century.
Although he became an
influential Spanish language
writer, English was his first
language. Throughout his early
life in Buenos Aires, Argentina
he nurtured a deep knowledge and love of American and European literature that
would later influence his own work. His short stories, poems, and translations are
considered world classics. Borges’ fiction is often characterized by fantastical
elements, and his influence can be felt in Wilson’s plays via the presence of
mysticism, ghosts, trips to the past, and other magical moments.
THE BLUES
Gertrude “Ma” Rainey,
“Mother of the Blues”
–August Wilson on the blues
Blues is a genre and musical form originated by African
Americans in the Deep South of the United States around
the end of the 19th century. Having roots in AfricanAmerican work songs and European-American folk music,
blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers,
shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads.
Classic blues performers such as Bessie Smith and
Gertrude “Ma” Rainey helped popularize this musical
continuation of the oral tradition, and the blues remain a
strong influence in many other popular forms, including
but not limited to jazz, country, rock and soul music. For
Wilson, each character’s ideas and attitudes are rooted in
the blues, and philosophies in the music teach the
characters how to live their lives.
Bessie Smith,
“Queen of the Blues”
13
THEMES & TOPICS
AUGUST WILSON’S HILL
August Wilson’s childhood home at
1727 Bedford Avenue in Pittsburgh.
Nine of the ten plays in August Wilson’s Century
Cycle are set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District where
he lived until he was 33. In the 1940s and
1950s, The Hill was Pittsburgh’s Harlem, a
racially mixed hub of creativity and commerce,
and one of the most prosperous black
communities in the country. The Hill was well
known on the National Jazz Circuit with places
like the Crawford Grill, Hurricane Lounge,
Savoy Ballroom and Musicians Club. As an
established scene and almost manditory stop
between Harlem and Chicago, The Hill District
welcomed such luminaries as Duke Ellington,
Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Eckstein, and Lena Horne.
Originally, The Hill was a predominantly Jewish community. Between 1870 and
1890, great numbers of Jewish immigrants arrived from Europe’s ghettos, with
Italians, Syrians, Greeks, and Poles soon to follow. During the years leading up to
World War I, Blacks were urged to come by industry recruiters who promised relief
from the segregation of the South. As new arrivals swelled the area, the Hill
became an ethnic and racial melting pot of Russians, Slovaks, Armenians, Syrians,
Lebanese, Greeks, Poles, Chinese, and Jews, weaving a rich tapestry for Pittsburgh
city life. Harlem renaissance poet Claude McKay called it the “Crossroads to the
World” in recognition of this convergence of such a robustly diverse arts scene.
QUOTABLE
“Once you made it as a bandleader in Crawford Grill, you were ready to go anywhere in
the world and play.”
- Dr. Nelson Harrison in an interview with Pittsburgh Magazine.
(Dr. Harrison played in the club from the 1960s until it closed in 2003. )
While the Hill District continued to be a vibrant, politically active community, it began
to suffer from a rapidly deteriorating neighborhood infrastructure, prompting
Pittsburgh city council member George E. Evans’ 1943 statement that
“approximately 90 percent of the buildings in the area are sub-standard, and have
long outlived their usefulness, and so there would be no social loss if these were all
destroyed.” As more black residents moved to the area and white residents
gravitated outside of the city center, many locals began to suspect that officials were
using this “redevelopment plan” as an excuse to create a “neutral zone” between
the city’s black and white areas.
14
THEMES & TOPICS
AUGUST WILSON’S HILL
The Hill was about 95% African
American in the 1960s when the city
demolished much of the Lower Hill
(where August Wilson grew up). As
they made way for what was then
known as the Civic Area, home to
the Pittsburg Penguins, some 8,000
residents and 400 businesses were
displaced. This was predictably
followed by a sharp economic
decline, which was exacerbated by
Crawford Grill No 1 at Wylie Avenue and Townsend
riots in the wake of Dr. Martin Luther
Street in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, c1951-1954.
©Charles “Teenie Harris, Carnegie Museum of Art
King Jr.’s 1968 assassination. From
April 5 to April 12 of 1968, a week of
rage brought 505 fires, $620,000 in property damages, one death, and 926 arrests.
To this day, The Hill remains one of the poorest districts in Pittsburgh, but recent
revitalization efforts offer hope for a positive dramatic turn in its future. The Hill
district’s rich legacy has been leveled by so many botched redevelopments and the
riots, but it was black Pittsburghers
who met and transcended these
problems and are striving to rebuild,
giving many confidence that the Hill
district will indeed regain the spark
and character it once had. Until then,
we can still enjoy The Hill through
August Wilson’s eyes. From a reallife jitney station to the imagined
residence of the character of Aunt
Ester at 1839 Wylie Avenue, August
A billboard in Pittsburgh’s Hill District
Wilson has immortalized Pittsburgh’s
©Charles “Teenie Harris, Carnegie Museum of Art
Hill District for decades to come.
Sources:
• “Teaching August Wilson: An Interactive Guide for Educators” by The August Wilson
Education Project (http://www.wqed.org/augustwilson/home)
• “Music in the Hill was a way of life until ‘progress’ silenced venues” by Kate Benz
(http://triblive.com/aande/music/7660763-74/hill-district-crwaford)
15
THEMES & TOPICS
THE GROUND ON WHICH I STAND
In 1996, August Wilson took the stage of the McCarter’s Matthews Theatre and
delivered a speech that, much like his plays, would change the face of American
Theatre forever. “The Ground on Which I Stand” was August Wilson’s keynote
address for the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) annual conference that year,
and spoke to questions of race, diversity, and cultural identity in the American
Theatre. It laid out his views on a wide variety of topics, including imperialism and
appropriation, white privilege, historical context, and even institutional funding as it
related to the American cultural landscape.
In the months that followed, heated debates arose both in terms of the historical
legacy addressed in the work and proactive responses to Wilson’s challenge for the
future of the industry. And as Isaac Butler keenly points out in his essay for TCG,
“Breaking ‘Ground’: How the Speech Came to Be and What It Set in Motion,” this
took place in a time before #OscarsSoWhite and #BlackLivesMatter were a thing;
conversations about representation, diversity, identity politics and racial equity in
culture did not yet maintain a space in our national dialogue. So the fact that
August Wilson’s speech “dynamited the hardened crust of assumptions about what
late-20th-century racial progress looked like, allowing subterranean tensions and
conflicts to bubble up, and over the surface” and furthermore, placed theatre at the
forefront of a national conversation about integration, nationalism, assimilation, and
power is truly a landmark event indeed.
QUOTABLE
“I believe in the American theatre. I believe in its power to inform about the human
condition, I believe in its power to heal, “to hold the mirror as ‘twere up to nature,” to the
truths we uncover, to the truths we wrestle from uncertain and sometimes unyielding
realities. All of art is a search for ways of being, of living life more fully.”
-August Wilson in “The Ground On Which I Stand”
In honor of the 20th anniversary of this watershed moment, the Lewis Center for the
Arts and the McCarter Theatre Center jointly produced a symposium in April of this
year that explored Wilson’s speech through the lens of the last twenty years of race
and theatre, and discussed where we stand today. Similarly, TCG commemorated
the anniversary by republishing the speech in its entirety in their June issue of this
year, along with a wide range of reports, reflections, and responses from individuals
across the country on the impact, arguments, and legacy of the speech, as well as
how it fits into Wilson’s body of work as an American artist and public intellectual.
The speech remains a significant part of his profound and lasting legacy, and a
central moment in his celebrated career.
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