Wilson's play Fences premiered on Broadway in 1987, earning the playwright his first Pulitzer Prize as well as a Tony Award. The year 1982 was particularly fruitful for Wilson, as it marked his introduction to Lloyd Richards, who went on to direct Wilson's first six Broadway plays. The following year, his new play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, was accepted at the Eugene O'Neill Playwright's Conference. Wilson wrote his first notable play in 1979, Jitney, for which he earned a fellowship at the Minneapolis Playwright Center. Plays: 'Fences, 'The Pittsburgh Cycle,' 'The Piano Lesson' Wilson remained primarily focused on making it as a poet - largely to no avail - until moving to St. In 1968, Wilson and a friend, Rob Penny, co-founded the Black Horizon Theater. When he was 15 years old, Wilson pursued an independent education at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, where he would earn his high school diploma.įollowing his father's death in 1965, a 20-year-old Wilson adopted the pen name 'August Wilson' - reportedly an homage to his mother - and declared himself a poet. After facing the relentless bigotry of his classmates at Central Catholic High School, he transferred to Connelly Vocational High School, and later to Gladstone High School. When his parents divorced, he, his mother and his siblings moved from the poor Bedford Avenue area of Pittsburgh to the mostly white neighborhood of Oakland. His father was a German immigrant named Frederick Kittel.Īs a child, Kittel attended St. His mother, Daisy Wilson, was of African American heritage. Wilson was born Frederick August Kittel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 27, 1945. Wilson died on October 2, 2005, in Seattle, Washington.

In 1996, Seven Guitars premiered on the Broadway stage, followed by King Hedley II in 2001 and Gem of the Ocean in 2004. Wilson won another Pulitzer Prize in 1990, for The Piano Lesson. Fences earned him a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award in 1987.

Famed playwright August Wilson wrote his first play, Jitney, in 1979.

The Piano Lesson by August Wilson