The director works as an interpretive artist, but he's still an artist, so you also have to give him room to create… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
When I first started writing plays I couldn't write good dialogue because I didn't respect how black people talked. I thought that… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
As soon as white folks say a play's good, the theater is jammed with blacks and whites. — August Wilson Copy Share Image
I know some things when I start. I know, let's say, that the play is going to be a 1970s or a… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
In 1980 I sent a play, 'Jitney,' to the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, won a Jerome Fellowship, and found myself sitting in… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
Blues is the bedrock of everything I do. All the characters in my plays, their ideas and their attitudes, the stance that… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
For me, the original play becomes an historical document: This is where I was when I wrote it, and I have to… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
When the sins of our fathers visit us We do not have to play host. We can banish them with forgiveness As… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
If you want to support a writer, produce the first five plays he writes. — August Wilson Copy Share Image
I'm trying to take culture and put it onstage, demonstrate it is capable of sustaining you. There is no idea that can't… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
In 1977, I wrote a series of poems about a character, Black Bart, a former cattle rustler-turned-alchemist. A good friend, Claude Purdy,… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
There's no reason why you can't say "August Wilson, playwright" even though all of my work, every single play, is about black… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
So somehow, things that seem extraneous to the play in reality are not. The scene lasts 37 minutes, and you only need… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
The impulse to write the poem, that impulse is a great dramatic impulse. But hell, anybody could write a play. I do… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
. . . what happened, of course, was that I was writing a play set in the 1940's that was supposed to… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
I've seen some terrible plays, but I generally enjoy myself. One play I walked out of, I have a tremendous respect for… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
I think the play offers (white Americans) a different way to look at black Americans For instance, in 'Fences' they see a… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
Most of black America is in housing projects, without jobs, living on welfare. And this is not the case in 'The Cosby Show,' because… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
I just write stuff down and pile it up, and when I get enough stuff, I spread it out and look at it and… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
I don't look at our society today too much. My focus is still in the past, and part of the reason is because what… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
The director works as an interpretive artist, but he's still an artist, so you also have to give him room to create and to… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
I dropped out of school, but I didn't drop out of life. I would leave the house each morning and go to the main… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
When I first started writing plays I couldn't write good dialogue because I didn't respect how black people talked. I thought that in order… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
“Like you? I go out of here every morning...bust my butt...cause I like you? It's my job. It's my responsibility!... Not cause I like… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
“-How long you been with the rail road now? -Twenty-seven years. Now, I'll tell you something about the railroad. What I done learned after… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
Scripts were rather scarce in 1968. We did a lot of Amiri Baraka's plays, the agitprop stuff he was writing. It was at a… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
I ain't never found no place for me to fit. Seem like all I do is start over. It ain't nothing to find no… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
I don't write for a particular audience. I work as an artist, and I think the audience of one, which is the self, and… — August Wilson Copy Share Image
