America’s Shakespeare: August Wilson

WGBY airs American Masters: August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand on February 20 at 9pm. The first documentary about the Tony- and Pulitzer-winning playwright August Wilson includes unprecedented access to Wilson’s theatrical archives, rarely seen interviews and new dramatic readings that bring to life his seminal 10-play cycle. Film and theater luminaries such as Viola Davis, Laurence Fishburne, James Earl Jones, and Phylicia Rashad share their life-changing stories of bringing Wilson’s theatrical voice to the stage.  You’ll find more on August Wilson at the American Masters website.  And at PBS LearningMediaLiterature and Life: Voices of the People, aligned to National Standards, reveals how live performance and writing for stage and screen, including the artful insight of Wilson, are important to African-American literature.  The full show, originally broadcast on 02/07/1998, includes slave narratives, scripts, renaissance writing and black power prose.

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