Bringing August Wilson’s Legacy to Life

When Janis Burley Wilson became President and Chief Executive Officer of the August Wilson African American Cultural Center in 2017, the only artifact of the great playwright’s life was his portrait hanging in the donor’s lounge, hidden from public view.

She set out to change that in a big way, tracking down mementos from his life and infusing the Center with his creative spirit.

Today visitors can view the big wooden desk where August Wilson penned such masterpieces as Fences and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. They can admire the jukebox from the Broadway production of Two Trains Running, and his beloved Jorge Luis Borges books from his personal library. They can listen to lines of dialogue from his plays, read by the actors who starred in them.

They also can visit a gallery devoted to emerging artists and bring the whole family to August Wilson Community Days.

“We wanted to educate people on August Wilson's accomplishments?in a way that was immersive, not a static kind of museum,” Burley Wilson said.

A $1.4 million grant in 2022 from the Richard King Mellon Foundation supports the Center’s operations. The Foundation has been providing operating support to the Center since its founding.

The Foundation’s 2022 grant helped the Center to hire two new?staff members and to develop an educational program tied to a new permanent exhibit called August Wilson: The Writer’s Landscape.?The buildout of the exhibit, which features his desk and personal possessions as well as scenes inspired by his plays, was funded by the Henry Hillman Foundation. The educational program tied to the exhibit also informs youth about career options in the arts.

The Center also unveiled a new experiential and interactive experience called Beyond the Red Door, created by curator Stephanie Rolland. The production allows theater-goers to step into scenes or settings from Wilson’s American Century Cycle, the 10 plays that reference?various decades in the 20th century, documenting the African-American experience in each.

In one performance, for example, the audience stepped into a scene that evoked the fictional Blue Goose nightclub in 1947. “We had the jazz band you might see if you went to the Blue Goose. People were dressed in period costume as if they were in a nightclub in 1947,” Burley Wilson said. Another performance was a culinary event called Taste of the Century Cycle, featuring a chef creating a dining experience with recipes highlighted in August Wilson’s plays.

The Foundation grant also helped the Center to develop partnerships to support the Black Bottom Film Festival (BBFF). A partnership with the Academy of Motion Pictures Museum will enable the Center to present Dr. Jacqueline Stewart, President of that museum, and host of Turner Classic Movies. The BBFF will offer screenings of silent films?by Oscar Micheaux, the Black author, film director, and independent film producer of 44 films from 1919 to 1948. Micheaux cast his silent?and sound films with Black actors in Afrofuturistic. For example, The Flying Ace, a silent movie made in 1926, was about Black pilots. “There were no Black pilots in the early 20th century; we weren’t permitted?to explore flight. It was a bold move for Micheaux,” Burley Wilson?said. A documentary about Micheaux made by his granddaughter and?the work of emerging filmmakers also will be shown at the Oct. 27-29, 2023 festival.

Burley Wilson grew up in Penn Hills with art all around her, from the jazz music that played in the house to her mother’s quilts. It wasn’t until she attended the University of Pittsburgh that she saw her first August Wilson play, Fences.

She was struck by the art he could make out of the lives of ordinary people he grew up with in the Hill District. “People recognize their families when they see those plays. Everybody has someone who's the cranky curmudgeon in the family or strong matriarch. Everybody has a story and all stories matter.”