PITTSBURGH — On Saturday, crowds gathered outside August Wilson’s childhood home in the historic Hill District to celebrate the grand opening of the August Wilson House. After years of fundraising and restoration efforts, the home where the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright spent the first 13 years of his life will now be open to the public with the aim of expanding Wilson’s legacy and promoting the dark arts. promote in culture.
Wilson, who died in 2005, is perhaps best known for his series of 10 plays called the American Century Cycle, which chronicles the different experiences of black Americans in the 20th century. Nine of these plays are set in this city’s Hill District—a bastion of black history, art and culture—and one, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” is set in Chicago.
The restoration effort was long in coming. Wilson’s cousin, Paul Ellis Jr., started the project after his uncle’s death. The abandoned house was left in a state of disrepair. Although it became a cultural pilgrimage site for Wilson fans after his death, those pilgrims didn’t see decay until they arrived.
With the help of several Pittsburgh foundations and other benefactors — including two-time Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington — the house is now a home for those who will follow in Wilson’s footsteps.
The August Wilson House is not a museum. Instead, the restored space is a community center that offers artist residencies, gathering spaces, fellowships, and other programming for emerging artists and scientists. There is also an outdoor stage behind the house, which is currently showing the production of Wilson’s play “Jitney” by the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Company until September 18.
According to Sam Reiman, a trustee of the Richard King Mellon Foundation here and a board member of the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, the space will be “the birthplace of August Wilson’s successors.”
Along with Reiman, Saturday’s ceremony featured a star-studded lineup of speakers, including Washington, who helped raise millions for the home’s restoration. Washington also starred, produced, and directed the 2016 film adaptation of “Fences,” one of Wilson’s Pittsburgh plays, which was filmed throughout the Hill District. He also produced the 2020 film adaptation of ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’.
Washington praised those in attendance for their support of Wilson and his legacy.
“I want to thank the community,” Washington said, because Wilson “is yours, and you are his. You just share it with the rest of us.”
Wilson’s widow, Constanza Romero Wilson, who designed the costumes for many of Wilson’s later plays, also spoke at the event.
‘This is holy ground,’ she said of the house at 1727 Bedford Avenue. It ‘commemorates the hero of our generation – August Wilson. August Wilson House belongs to the Hill, to black Americans, and because his stories are American stories of triumph under oppression, it belongs to all of us Americans.”
Also in attendance were local leaders, including Ed Gainey, Pittsburgh’s first black mayor, and Daniel Lavelle, a city councilman.
The first speaker for Gainey’s 1994 graduation was none other than August Wilson, whose name the mayor admitted he had never heard before that day. He called his mother, he said, and she told him all about the playwright.
“There isn’t a kid in this town who shouldn’t know who August Wilson is. No kid,” Gainey said. “And today speaks volumes about how far we’ve come in recognizing African American history in this city and celebrating the heroes who came before us.”
He added, “Today is August Wilson’s Day.”
It was a sentiment echoed by Lavelle, who had a comment before Gainey’s speech.
“Not only should every kid in our town know who August Wilson is,” he said, “but everyone in this country should know who August Wilson is.”
Lavelle also read a proclamation from the City of Pittsburgh that on August 13, 2022, Paul Ellis Jr. Day was named in honor of his work to preserve Wilson’s home.
“People were actually telling me my vision was too big,” Ellis explained, adding that when he talked about what he wanted his uncle’s house to be, people looked at him as if he were a kid who proudly declared that he once lived. would become president.
“But as Nelson Mandela said, ‘It always seems impossible until it’s done.'”