🎭 #ArtIsAWeapon Visiting the #AugustWilsonHouse in Pittsburgh, PA is on my list of places to travel!
✍️🏾reposted from @mellonfoundation American theater history lives on 1727 Bedford Avenue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
@augustwilsonhouse preserves and activates the childhood home of legendary playwright August Wilson.
Born and raised in Pittsburgh’s historic Hill District, Wilson lived in a two-room apartment with his mother and five siblings. When he was four years old, his mother, Daisy, taught him how to read at the kitchen table.
Wilson started his career as a poet, joining the Centre Avenue Poets Theater Workshop. After co-founding the Black Horizon Theater with Rob Penny, he began to produce plays. As opportunities drew him away from his hometown, his work filled with scenes and memories of the Hill District.
The neighborhood provided inspiration for nine of his 10 plays in the “Pittsburgh Cycle,” which documented African American life in the 20th century. This earned him two Pulitzer Prizes, in 1987 for “Fences” and 1990 for “The Piano Lesson.”
But as his career rose, Wilson’s childhood home fell into disrepair. His beloved Hill District lost about 75% of its residents through policies that drove unemployment and urban displacement.
Prior to his death, Wilson knew of the desire to restore his childhood home. But he never wanted it to become a museum—rather, he wanted the space to be directly “useful” to the community and a place of refuge for artists.
After renovations led by family, community members, and historic preservationists, August Wilson House opened to the public as a community arts center in 2022.
“Our tagline is, ‘claim what is yours,’” says executive director Denise Turner. “We want people to find creativity around every corner of the house and take a little piece of that with them.”
Today, AWH offers free arts programming, playwriting Fellowships, and has an accessible outdoor theater where Wilson’s plays are remounted. Its “Art for August” program commissions visual artists to create works inspired by the playwright.
At the center of the house lies a historical reproduction of Wilson’s apartment, kitchen table and all. It is here that visitors get a true sense of where it all started.
#AugustWilson #BlackTheater #JoeTurnersComeAndGone
