August Wilson

In 1969, he married Brenda Burton, who was a Muslim. He also converted to the faith and the couple had a daughter together. Unfortunately the two divorced in 1972.

In 1981, he married social worker, Judy Oliver. They divorced in the year 1990.

In 1994, he married costume designer, Constanza Romero with whom he had a daughter.

He was born as Frederick August Kittel, Jr. in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Frederick August Kittel, Sr., a pastry chef and baker and Daisy Wilson, a cleaning woman of African descent.

His childhood was rather humble. He was raised by his mother in a two-room apartment located above a grocery store, while his father was mostly not present.

In the 1950’s, his mother divorced his father and remarried and the two relocated to a white inhabited neighbourhood, where they faced much hostility and racial discrimination.

Wilson attended the Central Catholic High School in Pennsylvania, where he was the only African-American student and was eventually thrown out. He later enrolled at the Connelley Vocational High School.

By the time he turned 16, he dropped out of school and began to take up many odd jobs. He self-educated himself by reading extensively at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

In 1971, one of his first pieces of writing titled, ‘Bessie’, which was a poem that was published in the summer of that year in the ‘Black Lines’, an African American publication.

In 1973, he staged one of his first plays, titled, ‘Recycling’, which he wrote after he learnt the art of writing for stage from a library book. He made his debut in the field of playwriting with this one-act play.

In the year 1980, he finished writing the play, ‘Fullerton Street’, which was based on the fight between boxers, Joe Louis and Billy Conn. The play, however, remained unproduced and unpublished.

In 1982, Wilson came out with the two-act play titled, ‘Jitney’, which premiered at the Allegheny Repertory Theatre in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The play later also went on off-Broadway in New York.

In 1982, he came out with the play titled, ‘Ma Rainey's Black Bottom’, which was part of the Pulitzer Prize winning ten play series, ‘Pittsburgh Cycle’. The play premiered at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center at Waterford, Connecticut.

His play ‘Jitney’ was the recipient of the Outer Critics Circle Award in the year 2001 in the category of ‘Outstanding Off-Broadway Play’. The play also received the Laurence Olivier Award for the category of ‘Best New Play’.

He is the author of the ten play collection titled, ‘The Pittsburgh Cycle’, which received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. Many theatres around the world have produced these ten plays, including the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company.