Syracuse Stage announces six shows for 2014-2015 season, including “The Piano Lesson” Oct. 22 to Nov. 9

Syracuse Stage announces its six shows for 2014-2015 season

From Syracuse.com:

“Syracuse Stage has lined up its 2014-2015 season. Stage has partnered with four theaters for three of its six productions. Earlier, it had announced “Sizwe Banzi is Dead,” by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona would be performed in 2015. The rest of the season includes:

“Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” by Christopher Durang. Sept. 24 to Oct. 12.

“The Piano Lesson,” by August Wilson. A co-production with Seattle Repertory Theatre. Oct. 22 to Nov. 9.

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School of black playwrights bring stories to Broadway

School of black playwrights bring stories to Broadway

From the Columbia Daily Tribune:

“The theater world has long been considered one of the most elite — and least diverse — in American culture.

Over the years, there have been occasional black playwriting successes. Lorraine Hansberry was the first black female writer to have a show — the classic “A Raisin in the Sun,” produced on Broadway — and it recently returned to Broadway, 55 years after its debut, with Denzel Washington now as the star. August Wilson became the first black playwright to win a Tony Award for best play in 1987.”

 

Who will save the August Wilson Center?

Who Will Save The August Wilson Center?

From Ebony:  “The August Wilson Center for African American Culture was meant to be a hub for African-American theater, art and education, named after renowned playwright and native son August Wilson. Today the Center is for sale, unable to pay its bills. Many wonder why it was allowed to get to this point, and some say the story behind it would have been great material for Wilson’s plays.”

Open Stage swings for “Fences” in stirring African-American drama set in 1950s: review

Open Stage swings for ‘Fences’ in stirring African-American drama set in 1950s: review

This is the world of “Fences,” August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play set during the 1950s, when African-Americans were just beginning on the road that would lead, in the next decade, to the stirring words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the landmark Civil Rights Act.

August Wilson’s “11th play” needs to come home

August Wilson’s ’11th play’ needs to come home

From Chris Rawson at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

“Wilson called this one-man monologue play ‘How I Learned What I Learned’ and performed it himself in 2003 in Seattle, where he then lived, directed by Mr. Kreidler. His plan to act it himself at New York’s Signature Theatre in 2005 was canceled by his illness and death. But last fall it was reborn in a full production at that same theater, performed by one of the leading Wilsonian actors, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, whom, as he lay dying, Wilson specifically designated as the play’s first performer. The director again was Mr. Kreidler, Wilson’s original collaborator.”