All Of It with Alison Stewart

Full Bio: August Wilson (Entire Interview)

Date: November 18, 2023
Guest: Patti Hartigan, author of August Wilson: A Life
Host: Alison Stewart

Overview

This episode presents an in-depth look at the life, artistry, and legacy of August Wilson—a towering figure in American theater—through a vibrant conversation with biographer Patti Hartigan. Focusing on Wilson's roots, personal struggles, historic contributions to theater, and the cultural resonance of his work, the discussion uses Hartigan’s exhaustive research to bring listeners inside Wilson’s world: his family stories, his creative motivations, his battles and triumphs both on stage and in broader culture.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Family Origins and Early Influences

• Roots in North Carolina:
  Wilson’s family story starts on Speartops Mountain in North Carolina. The matriarchy, embodied by great-grandmother Sarah Ella Cutler, has both legendary and documented stories.

  “With that period of history, it's very hard to document...The story of Willard Justice being killed up there is absolutely true. That's documented...the scene that I paint at the very beginning of the book actually happened.”
  — Patti Hartigan [00:47]

• Ancestral Memory in Plays:
  Wilson drew from generational tales—writing "from the blood's memory," often honoring matriarchs he never knew personally.

  “He honored all the ancestors. He wrote from what he called the blood's memory...the matriarchs were very, very important to him.”
  — Patti Hartigan [01:55]

• Ties Between Family History and Characters: Patterns from Wilson’s past—like chain gangs and pianos left in wills—surface symbolically in his plays.

  “There was a Calvin listed in the list of enslaved people. In that same will, the owner left a piano to his daughter. And there's a play called the Piano Lesson.”
  — Patti Hartigan [02:47]

Pittsburgh’s “The Hill” and Racial Identity

• Setting as Character:
  The Hill District in Pittsburgh shaped Wilson, offering both a vibrant Black community and stories he’d later dramatize.

  "It was the kind of place in the 50s where everybody was an anti. All the women could yell at any kid if they caught them doing something wrong."
  — Patti Hartigan [03:59]

• Absent Father Figure:
  Wilson’s white father was rarely present and not a positive influence; surrogate father figures replaced him.

• Struggles with Identity and Racism:
  Despite his multiracial background, Wilson unequivocally identified as Black, and resisted efforts to define him differently.

  "He self-identified. Every human on the planet can choose to identify however they want, but people wouldn’t leave him alone about this."
  — Patti Hartigan [15:52]

  He targeted microaggressions and outright prejudice in schools, leading to his dropping out and self-education at the Carnegie Library.

  “I dropped out of school, but I did not drop out of life.”
  — August Wilson, quoted by interviewer [10:28]

The Making of a Writer

• Poetry & Autodidacticism:
  Wilson’s early poetry foreshadowed the lyricism of his dialogue. After leaving formal schooling, he devoured literature independently, especially Black writers.

  "He went to the Carnegie Library every day. And he read and read and read and read. He was a complete autodidact."
  — Patti Hartigan [10:32]

• Name Change as Rebirth:
  On the day of his father’s death, Wilson rechristened himself, reflecting a deep psychological and artistic turning point.

  “He changed his name on April 1, 1965. That was the day that his father passed. He never told anyone that was the day.”
  — Patti Hartigan [12:33]

• Early Struggles and Jobs:
  Supporting himself through odd jobs, he maintained his poetic identity, marking the territory between necessity and vocation.

Artistic Influences (“The Four Bs”)

• Romare Bearden, The Blues, Amiri Baraka, Borges:
  Wilson’s “Four Bs” shaped his dynamic narrative forms and commitment to centering Black culture.

  • Bearden:
    “The name of the play is taken from a Bearden collage...his whole world changed when he saw these images.”
    — Patti Hartigan [19:05]

  • The Blues (esp. Bessie Smith):
    “It was the music that spoke to him...while writing King Hedley II...he said the current generation had learned everything at the foot of the blues.”
    — Patti Hartigan [21:24]

  • Baraka:
    “He believed that art and culture could perhaps bring about social progress. And August Wilson and his friends had a theater called Black Horizons which was modeled after it.”
    — Patti Hartigan [22:31]

  • Borges:
    "He had read a story by Borges ... that used that technique of telling you what happens in the very first sentence. And then the mystery is, well, how did it get that way?"
    — Patti Hartigan [23:26]

Formation of Black Horizons Theater

• Grassroots Theater:
  Wilson and friends started Black Horizons, staging community-centered Black work with little professional experience but great passion.

  “They started this theater and none of them really knew what they were doing...Theater in the spirit.”
  — Patti Hartigan [24:14]

• Early Failures and Lessons Learned:
  His first plays (“Recycle,” “Black Bart and the Sacred Hills”) flopped, but these “musicals” and mixed-genre experiments steeled his perseverance.

Partnership with Lloyd Richards and The Birth of an American Cycle

• Eugene O'Neill Theater Center:
  The O’Neill became an artistic hothouse; after multiple rejections, Wilson’s play “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and his partnership with Lloyd Richards (a landmark Black director) propelled him to national attention.

  “He walked quietly. But when he said something, he had such gravitas...he was the Buddha.”
  — Patti Hartigan on Lloyd Richards [31:56]

• Regional Tryouts and Creative Growth:
  Richards invented a model—testing Wilson’s plays regionally—that allowed for enormous creative risk and refinement.

  “He didn’t like to cut his place until he saw them...so this particular method for him was great.”
  — Patti Hartigan [35:45]

• Tensions and Breakup:
  Their collaboration eventually fractured over creative control and new alliances, most dramatically during the making of “Seven Guitars”.

The Century Cycle: Chronicling Black Experience

• A Massive Undertaking:
  Wilson resolved to write one play per decade of the 20th-century African American experience—a vision with no precedent in American literature.

  “No other American playwright has ever done anything this ambitious...he was finishing this task on his deathbed.”
  — Patti Hartigan [41:59]

• Signature Styles:

  • Extended, poetic monologues (see: Viola Davis’s speech in “King Hedley II”) [44:34]
  • "Spectacle characters" (e.g., Gabriel in "Fences").
  • Supernatural elements tied to ancestral memory (e.g., Aunt Ester/Ancestor appearing throughout the cycle).

• Female Characters:
  Early criticism centered on Wilson’s female roles; Hartigan notes his women characters gained depth in later works.

  “They got more rounded, more...there was more to them as he wrote later...But I do understand the criticism, especially in the early plays.”
  — Patti Hartigan [47:30]

Actors and Theatrical Community

• The "Wilson Warriors":
  A company of actors, including Anthony Chisholm, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and Viola Davis, who returned to his plays repeatedly.

• Fences — Triumph and Challenges:
  Fences won both the Pulitzer and Tony, with James Earl Jones at the center of on-set creative clashes.

  “James Earl Jones was pretty direct...he didn't like August Wilson and he said that August Wilson didn't like him either.”
  — Patti Hartigan [50:25]

• Insistence on Black Directors for Film:
  Wilson’s demand for Black directors (notably barring Fences’ early adaptation by Eddie Murphy) delayed a film version until Denzel Washington’s acclaimed adaptation in 2016.

  “He felt for this particular movie...to direct it, you had to be a member of the culture that it depicted.”
  — Patti Hartigan [54:33]

Impact, Legacy, and Activism

• The “Ground On Which I Stand” Speech (1996):
  At a national theater conference, Wilson directly confronted the systemic marginalization of Black playwrights and rejected “colorblind” casting as erasure.

  “There are and have always been two distinct and parallel traditions in black art. That is, art…to entertain white society and art that feeds the spirit and celebrates the life of black America...”
  — August Wilson (read by host) [65:58]

• Cultural Reception:
  The speech triggered shock, uproar, and a long, polarized debate in American theater, most publicly with critic Robert Brustein. Their “Town Hall” debate was billed as “the fight of the century,” though both men later reached conciliation.

  “It became about two public intellectuals sparring... it was really for show.”
  — Patti Hartigan [74:45]

• Persistent Barriers:
  Wilson did not see much genuine institutional change in theater during his lifetime, despite the pronouncements of progress.

  “August Wilson would have told you on the day he died that he hadn't seen any change.”
  — Patti Hartigan [78:05]

Personal Life and Legacy

• Family and Relationships:
  Wilson prioritized his work, sometimes at the cost of family life.

  “Yeah, the work comes first, family comes second.”
  — August Wilson (citing 60 Minutes interview) [61:15]

  He had three marriages and two daughters, Sakina Ansara (with Brenda Burton) and Azula Carmen (with Constanza Romero).

  “He truly cared about...his children. But again, the work came first, and it’s sort of...the price someone like that pays.”
  — Patti Hartigan [61:18]

• Final Years, Death, and Unfinished Dreams:
  Wilson was as ambitious at 60 (his age at death, days before Radio Golf reached Broadway) as ever, with plans for novels and other plays left unfulfilled.

• Impact Assessment:

  “He changed the American theater. He opened it up in a way that...should have been opened up before, but had not been. He wrote a record of stories.”
  — Patti Hartigan [85:14]

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Ancestral Presence:
  "He wrote from what he called the blood's memory...He worshiped his mother, Daisy Wilson. And he didn't know Zanya, but she represented the link to the past."
  — Patti Hartigan [01:55]

• On Perseverance:
  "He applied to the Eugene o' Neill Theater center five times, even sent the same play twice because he didn't think they had read it. And he just kept going."
  — Patti Hartigan [28:59]

• On Refusing to Compromise:
  "One thing you didn't do was tell August Wilson what to do with his plays...he turned the offer down...he wanted control of his work."
  — Patti Hartigan [37:40]

• On the Cycle's Significance:
  "No other American playwright has ever done anything this ambitious...he was finishing this task on his deathbed."
  — Patti Hartigan [41:59]

• On Audience Reception:
  "When there were moments...every single woman in the theater jumps to their feet and starts applauding. So they do have their moments."
  — Patti Hartigan, on women characters [48:59]

• On Debate and Racism in Theater:
  "You read that now and you think he actually had to say that. But, I mean, it was, in quotes, controversial."
  — Patti Hartigan [68:52]

• On the Cost of Genius:
  "He said he set the bar so high for himself. But, yeah, he would admit absolutely that the work came first."
  — Patti Hartigan [62:33]

• On Wilson's Legacy:
  "He wrote great plays that also chronicle the Black experience...the characters in his plays are not superheroes. They're regular people who did extraordinary things."
  — Patti Hartigan [85:14]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:47–03:59 — Family legacy, ancestral history, and influences
• 06:14–10:28 — Early education, stutter, racism, self-directed learning
• 12:33–14:42 — Name change, early poetic ambitions, and odd jobs
• 18:54–24:14 — Artistic inspirations (The Four Bs), early plays, and Black Horizons
• 28:54–35:45 — Struggles in theater, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Lloyd Richards partnership
• 37:35–41:59 — Breakthrough reviews, Broadway ascent, and conception of the Century Cycle
• 44:34–47:30 — Play signatures, monologue examples (incl. Viola Davis in King Hedley II), and character analysis
• 50:25–55:26 — “Fences” stage/film history, creative clashes, Black directors
• 65:58–78:05 — “Ground On Which I Stand” speech, Brustein debate, impact/lack thereof
• 79:48–85:14 — Final years, unfinished goals, legacy, and summing up Wilson’s cultural contribution

Conclusion: The Enduring Relevance of August Wilson

Through personal history, artistic innovation, and unflinching advocacy, August Wilson expanded the boundaries of American theater, carved out space for Black stories and artists, and left a profoundly human legacy. As Patti Hartigan observes, Wilson’s greatest achievement may be both the 10-play cycle capturing the 20th-century Black experience and the widening of the American stage for all those who came after.