august wilson
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Giving Voice Trailer First-Look: August Wilson Lives On Through the Students Who Recite His Monologues
I recently attended the advanced virtual screening for Netflix’s film adaptation of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (whew, still processing the amazing performances in that one, but I’ll share more on that later), and following the film, Samuel L. Jackson moderated a Q&A with the cast and crew. At multiple points in the panel, Jackson alluded…
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Theater, Film and TV Actor Anthony Chisholm Dead at 77
Theater, film and television actor Anthony Chisholm has died at age 77, The Katz Company, his talent management, announced Friday. Chisholm was born on April 9, 1943, in Cleveland, Ohio and before he was a beloved actor he was a platoon leader for the U.S. Army’s 4th Armored Cavalry, 1st Infantry Division in the Vietnam…
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August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Film Adaptation Confirmed With Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman to Star, Denzel Washington to Produce
Another one of August Wilson’s brilliant plays is coming to the silver screen! Get ready to sound the trumpets because this time, it’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. The film’s synopsis, per its press release: When Ma Rainey, the “Queen of the Blues,” makes a record in a studio in Chicago, 1927, tensions boil between her,…
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Playwright Loy A. Webb Brings The Light to Where #MeToo, #MuteRKelly and #BlackLivesMatter Converge
Three years ago when Loy A. Webb crafted The Light, the burgeoning playwright had no idea where the world would be when her play had its New York premiere last month. The Logan Vaughn-directed drama is set in today’s Chicago and turns the idyllic concept of millennial black love on its head as a couple,…
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A (Very Short) Case for Why Pittsburgh Is the Blackest City in America
I’m not going to cite the Homestead Grays or the history of the Hill District. Nor will I The Pittsburgh Courier, Homewood, Teenie Harris, Billy Eckstine, Phyllis Hyman, John Edgar Wideman, Little Haiti, The Crawford Grill, Mary Lou Williams, George Benson, Josh Gibson, Antoine Fuqua, Billy Porter, Latoya Ruby Frazier, Art Blakey, Romare Bearden, Kyle…
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Watch: The Cast of Fences Share Their Experience in Making Such an Important Film
Before his death in 2005, August Wilson optioned Fences as a feature film. He was adamant about wanting a black director, saying: “I declined a white director, not on the basis of race, but on the basis of culture. White directors are not qualified for the job. The job requires someone who shares the specifics…
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Review: Fences Is an Acting and Directorial Feast Fit for August Wilson's Words
August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Fences has finally made it to the big screen, directed by Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington. Wilson’s masterful storytelling about a working-class family living in a historic Pittsburgh neighborhood and fighting for survival, personally and professionally, jumps off the screen under Washington’s brilliant direction. Wilson’s splendid storytelling blends perfectly with…
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Mykelti Williamson on Fences, Acting While Black and the Power of the Mind
When you’ve been handpicked by Denzel Washington to sign on to a multimillion-dollar film that he’s directing, you know you’re doing something right. And for actor and director Mykelti Williamson, who plays Gabriel in Washington’s rendition of Fences, this is indeed the case. It’s safe to say that as a director, Washington was judicious in…
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Join Us #AcrossTheFence: A Day Of Family Healing, In Connection To August Wilson's Fences
Today, the #AcrossTheFence interview series with my dad culminates with two segments — one where I explain how and why I began to think and write about race, and one where my dad shares a story about his Uncle Wilbur, the first Black fireman in New Castle, Pa (and the man my dad is named…
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More #AcrossTheFence (This Time, Damon's Parents Start A Race Riot)
Couple things about this video: 1. I’ve heard this story somewhere between 40 and 640 times, and it gets better every time I hear it. 2. I actually do incorporate it in my book. (My version of the story is much, um, different though.) 3. If this happened today — a Black couple and a Black…