Walk into August Wilson's life and plays in immersive new exhibit

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/17/ [login to see] /walk-into-august-wilsons-life-and-plays-in-immersive-new-exhibit
Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson, who died in 2005, is one of the prides of Pittsburgh - yet until this week, there has been no site in his hometown where fans could go to experience the breadth of his legacy as a chronicler of the Black American experience through his monumental, 10-play Century Cycle.

Now there's "August Wilson: The Writer's Landscape," a permanent immersive and interactive exhibition at – where else? – Pittsburgh's August Wilson African American Cultural Center. The center, which opened in 2009, is located just a half-mile from the brick rowhouse that was Wilson's own first home, in the historically Black neighborhood called the Hill District.

Wilson only lived in Pittsburgh until 1978, before moving to St. Paul, Minn., and then Seattle, but the city he grew up in continued to inform his work for the rest of his life.

"It was important to have a site where people could walk and immerse in August Wilson's work, learn about his influences, learn about how he worked and why he did the things that he did, why he wrote about specific topics in a specific way," said Center executive director Janis Burley Wilson, who oversaw the four-year project from start to finish. .