August Wilson House, the great artist’s childhood home, is opening as an arts center for the Hill—a tribute to his legacy, with a willing heart to nurture artists to come.
To do this, it needs more than the welcome contributions of theater stars and Pittsburgh foundations. To make this a real community arts center, we need all who honor August Wilson and his Hill to join in. Add your name or those of your family and friends to the embracing bricks that will help make August Wilson House a home.
Legacy bricks cost $100, $250, $500 or $1,000 and will be located in the small patio to the left, along the sidewalk in front, on the path up to the main entrance and at that entrance itself. All the bricks will be limited to up to three lines of text and 14 characters (including spaces and punctuation) per line.
Step up now and join the August Wilson House family, so we can get your names on bricks and in place well before the mid-summer House opening!
Claim what is yours.
Born in 1945, the great playwright spent his first 13 years here with his mother and five siblings, crammed into two rooms (later four). A Jewish family ran a small mom-and-pop store in front, and two Italian brothers repaired shoes and watches next door — Jewish and Italian and Black, the three major groups in the once-multiethnic Hill that turned almost entirely Black after 1968.
However cramped, these small rooms, this house and its yard all pulsed with life. There, August grew up inquisitive, loyal and an incessant reader, to become a Black Nationalist, then poet and playwright.
The life nurtured at 1727 Bedford became the passionate heart of his unprecedented American Century Cycle of 10 plays, an epic dramatization of African-American life through a century of comedy and tragedy, aspiration and despair — or as he put it, “love, honor, duty, betrayal.”
August was born into a multiethnic Hill of 55,000 that was one of the nation’s most vibrant Black neighborhoods, with a great Negro League baseball team and enough jazz greats to fill a wing of the hall of fame, all chronicled by the nationally-distributed Pittsburgh Courier, the inimitable Teenie Harris, and eventually August Wilson.
Cramped though it was, poor though they were, August said, “I had a wonderful childhood. … As a family, we did things together. … We all sat down and had dinner at a certain time. … We didn’t have a TV, so we listened to the radio.”
His youth was shaped here: his mother’s guidance, family gatherings, family fights, neighborhood stories, struggles and successes, and his yearning for knowledge and understanding of the world around him. It all fed his plays: “I happen to think that the content of my mother’s life — her myths, her superstitions, her prayers, the contents of her pantry, the smell of her kitchen, the song that escaped from her sometimes parched lips, her thoughtful repose and pregnant laughter — are all worthy of art.”
The August Wilson House (AWH) was derelict when August visited in 1999 and still derelict when he died in 2005. It quickly became a site of cultural pilgrimage, but those pilgrims saw a wreck. Then Paul Ellis, August’s nephew, formed the Daisy Wilson Artist Community, named for August’s mother. The AWH was landmarked and initial restoration stopped the decay. Eventually Pittsburgh foundations and government supported restoration of the outer shell, and programming began.
Our guiding principle comes from August himself, who often said he didn’t want the house to be a museum. If it was going to be preserved, he said, it should be “useful.” Thus our mission:
… to celebrate the literary and personal legacy of August Wilson and serve as an arts center to nurture the historic Hill District community and arts practitioners and scholars influenced by his work.
The August Wilson House aims first to celebrate the rich store of personal memory and community history into which August dipped the ladle of his transforming art, and second to extend his legacy by advancing the art and culture of the African diaspora and impacting the cultural landscape of the Hill and beyond. The two-room childhood home, restored to its 1950’s period of significance in August’s life, will be revived as an intimate interpretive site, with adjacent rooms housing digital and audio displays and artifacts about his life and plays.
Beyond will be a series of small artist studios and community gathering spaces. Outside will be annual productions of the American Century Cycle plays, perhaps growing into a biennial August Wilson Festival.
Through August Wilson Visiting Fellowships, both local and national artists and scholars will be provided immersive work, research, and community exchange opportunities in return for partnering with Hill District organizations and Pittsburgh arts groups and universities. Ultimately, the AWH will be a catalyst in the Hill’s re-emergence, linking with other Hill institutions (some being restored themselves) into a network of revival.
It is high time the AWH was put to use, as August wanted.
The heart of the AWH will always be the small family home within the larger house. Combined, they will be a spiritually-rich cultural hub for the Hill and larger Pittsburgh community, offering signature theatrical productions and events, art exhibitions and literary workshops, roundtable discussions and classes in the tradition of the Black Arts Movement.
Brought to fruition, the AWH will honor August’s mother, Daisy, who taught him to read when he was four, was disappointed when he dropped out of school but lived to see his first play on stage.
As August honored her legacy by passing it forward, so we will do with his.
In planning the transformation of the August Wilson House, the Daisy Wilson Artist Community has developed a number of strategic partnerships that connect the mission of the organization to the Hill’s Master Community Plan and environmental “Green Print” by landscape architect Walter Hood. Integral to this work is engaging youth and neighborhood stakeholders. Examples of strategic partnerships include the Trade Institute of Pittsburgh (construction trades), Carnegie Mellon’s Urban Design Build Studio (preservation technology) and Duquesne University’s Honors College (community engagement and future fellowships).
An early fruit of the AWH restoration was this 2016 back- yard production of Seven Guitars, staged in the exact space August describes in the script, drawing on memories of his family life. Shown is the curtain call for the collaboration with Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, which ran for four weeks to overflow audiences. Outdoor productions of August’s plays will be annual events.
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Central to the AWH will be the two-room family home, supported by displays and interactive opportunities. All this, August would regard as “useful.”
Central to the AWH will be the two-room family home, supported by displays and interactive opportunities. All this, August would regard as “useful.”
Already creating a strong community identity is the annual August Wilson Birthday Block Party, which has drawn more than 1,000 (and growing) to a festive afternoon of stage and music performances, vendors, food, kids’ games and activities at the nearby August Wilson Park.
Bringing his art home will be annual backyard productions of August’s plays, inaugurated by Seven Guitars. Both this and the Block Parties have increased multicultural audiences in the Hill.
Nationally, the AWH is a co-sponsor of the August Wilson American Century Cycle Award with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (in consultation with Constanza Romero Wilson), celebrating those theaters that have staged the full 10-play cycle.
The August Wilson Visiting Fellows program is being developed on two tracks, collaborating with community arts groups and Pittsburgh universities. Fellows might exhibit work and give community lessons and readings.
Ultimately, the AWH hopes also to develop artists’ housing nearby, creating an artistic community to help regenerate the Hill.
Every contribution helps in bring the mission of The August Wilson House closer to fruition.
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