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August Wilson Writing Contest!!
Signature Theatre Company presents
The Legacy of
August Wilson
After many weeks, and many applications, the August Wilson Writing Contest has come to a close.
Local students entered essays to demonstrate their knowledge of August Wilson's life, his works, or the common themes he wrote about. These essays were judged by a panel of celebrity judges, including Stephen McKinley Henderson, Lynda Gravatt and Cherise Booth.
We had many outstanding applicants, and are pleased to announce the winners:
You can click on the titles of the essays or scroll below to read them.
Special thanks to
Time Warner Inc. and Target
for providing contest prizes
"A Savior in August"
By: Paige Pavone
GRAND PRIZE WINNER
This year I enrolled in a class at my high school, which over the next five years, will study and perform the plays of the late August Wilson. As a black playwright raised in Pittsburgh, Wilson wrote ten works paralleling African-American culture in each respective decade of the twentieth century, most of which were set in his hometown, with the exception of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. In September, each student was given the script to The Piano Lesson, fed the basic lessons of theater, and instructed to maintain a journal discussing the work's importance to the student's heritage and current obstacles. As a theater enthusiast and self-proclaimed anthropologist, I was thrilled.
The Piano Lesson presents a fascinating story about a brother desperately wanting to ameliorate the past, a sister afraid to let it go, and the piano that embodied their family history, their fears, and, ultimately, their struggle to discover the balance between releasing the cultural burdens of their ancestors and retaining the values, appreciation, and respect for that same culture. The subsequent play in the ten-work cycle, and the play my school is presently rehearsing, is Seven Guitars. Seven Guitars is an intricate literary piece, exploring the themes of fury and frustration with an unjust society, and introducing the concept of a black savior who must cautiously rise to power and be understood, without succumbing to a fate similar to the unappreciated rooster or the unaware, Floyd 'Schoolboy' Barton. Seven Guitars achieves so great a message that it continues in King Hedley II in order to convey its essential implications and the outcomes associated with them.
The juxtaposition of The Piano Lesson and Seven Guitars within Wilson's cyclical plays, emphasizes the correlation between the strong, yet, as perceived by Boy Willie, cumbersome, history of African-Americans and the need for a savior to instill pride and emancipate the blacks in a white-dominated society. Hedley recognizes his people's need for a symbol of hope, such as Joe Louis or Marcus Garvey. Hedley hopes his son can carry out his dream, since his failing health and age prevent him from doing so. The readers of The Piano Lesson can identify with Hedley's wish. Boy Willie and Berniece illustrate the need for this savior, in contrasting fashions. Boy Willie needs the savior to show him how to acknowledge the atrocities of the past, without falling prey to the hurt they have triggered and continue to afflict. Conversely, Berniece needs a savior to demonstrate the ways in which she must leave the past to rest, and to shift her focus from her ancestors' shame to their accomplishments in the face of adversity. Although tension and racial discrepancies exist, she must value her past for the ways in which it can invigorate and strengthen her.
Wilson's voice has become that savior, as both a playwright and an African-American. His writing transcends the pages, allowing readers to recognize his important messages by portraying his admirable thoughts through life-like characters that not only embody every aspect of the African-American struggle, but also the ways to free oneself from this struggle and exchange it with fitting pride.
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"Every Person is Born with a Heritage"
By: Inna Kofman
SECOND PLACE
Every person is born with a heritage, a part of them that they have not created, but rather one that has been passed down to them. They in turn create a legacy for the next generation. In his plays, August Wilson often addresses this subject, and its affect on the African American community. His plays demonstrate the lasting effect of slavery, and the difficult times that followed, as well as the African Americans' search for identity in the new, "free" world.
In Wilson's play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, the characters often reflect on their heritage with regret. They tend to classify people into two groups "colored folks" and "white folks". In the eyes of the protagonists, the latter group is the one with all of the power, the group that decides the fate of the former.
Throughout the play Toledo is the voice of reason, trying to take ignorance out of the hearts of the other men. At one point he even says "We done sold ourselves to the white man in order to be like him....We's imitation white men" (94). This is his attempt to gather support to overcome the boundaries that have been set by the long standing, outdated conventions of society.
Levee is on the opposite side of the spectrum; he is the youngest of the group and "somewhat of a buffoon" (23). Levee is arrogant and boastful; he takes any chance to show off his "talent", and is eager to move on with his life, and create what he calls "real music".
Levee believes that he is righteous and successful; unfortunately this is mainly based on Mr. Irvin's, a white man's supposed desire to record his music. Sadly, it is this very mentality that supports Toledo's idea that "as long as the colored man look to white folks to put the crown on what he say...He's just gonna be about what white folks want him to be about." (37).
According to August Wilson, the colored man is constantly seeking any kind of output of sentiment from the white man, whether it be approval respect or even reverence. It seems at first that Ma Rainey is an independent woman, one who "don't stand for no shit" as she herself declares; however through her monologue; she unintentionally reveals her hurt feelings toward the way she is treated by white people, as she says "they don't care nothing about me. All they want is my voice" (pg. 79).
At the end of the play, when Levee stabs Toledo, reason is put to sleep, while an ignorant, adamant, and partisan devotion to the white man's expectations remain. Levee kills his friend for stepping on a shoe which he bought to be accepted in white society. He is a pawn, unwilling to fight against what is presented to him. Like other plays by August Wilson this one ends with the sound of a trumpet, a sad, poignant call for help.
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"My Personal Reaction to the Life and Legacy of August Wilson"
By: Jamal Bell
THIRD PLACE
August Wilson endured racism throughout life. Racial slurs made him drop out of school. I never experienced outright racism but I'm constantly reminded that I'm black; therefore our common threads lie in the history of our people. He overcame hardships as a black man to achieve his dream, a difficult task in America. He was self-taught and soon found expression in black culture through poetry and plays. His childhood inspires me to strive to achieve what I want without losing myself in the process. He incorporated life experiences into his literature, which focused on racist, discriminatory America. He emphasized the empowering effect of black history. Like Wilson, I found my way to express myself in my culture, and I do so through theatre and song. I'm honored to be part of the August Wilson Project at my school, because I have the opportunity to perform in his works and have a hands-on experience rather than reading a book in class. In the project, over the next five years, we'll present a production of every show from his ten-play cycle.
We worked on four plays so far. From doing his plays, I've realized that they all touch specific aspects of the black experience through time. One show focused on an ex-convict searching for his wife, and how it was important to not let anyone steal your song, or soul. Another show focused on whites exploiting blacks for money. Black musicians couldn't produce the music they wanted; they made music to help people "forget their troubles." One involves siblings fighting over a family heirloom from slavery. It presents black migration to the North and raises the question of whether to maintain or forget the past. Another show explores a man who has dreams of having a son to grow up and not obey the white man. I realized how oppression affects all areas of life and how blacks have become stronger and unified as a result.
His ten play cycle sums up black treatment, oppression, the effects of white society, hope, heartbreak, and past experiences. I discovered universal themes in his works. The oppressors kill and create hardship, the quest for money creates numerous problems, music brings people together and opens one's soul, law places people on work farms, many search for satisfaction or harbor a dream, and blacks are put in jail for illegitimate reasons throughout the cycle.
Performing gives me the opportunity to address societal problems. Without Wilson, I would fear expressing my feelings because I feel the same as he does about the black experience and such things shouldn't ever be forgotten. I find my roots in performing because it's about my people and I'm inspired to express myself. Wilson made notable accomplishments and he's a great role model for black youth. I'm cautious about the way I view life because one can't progress without knowledge of the past. I want to accomplish an acting career. The August Wilson Theatre on Broadway instills hope that I'll make it someday.
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"The Importance of the Works of August Wilson"
By: Barron Bass
HONORABLE MENTION
August Wilson's life and legacy is one that cannot be ignored when discussing how far African-American literature has come today. He is one of several playwrights who have succeeded in preserving African-American culture in its many aspects: through poetry, through its music, and most of all, its language. August Wilson didn't focus on using the sophisticated language that other black playwrights at the time used in their works; he took a different approach by using slang and the language used by blacks during the time each play was set. This technique allows audiences to one, think about how language has evolved over time and two, get the real feeling of what is being said in the plays.
I have had the privilege of being a part of two August Wilson productions and have enjoyed each one of them. One of them, The Piano Lesson, is focused on conflicts between a brother and sister selling a family heirloom to buy the land that they work and that their ancestors worked as slaves. That heirloom, being the piano, represents the rich history that African-Americans have through all their struggles. In the end, the main moral behind the story is that we should not give up our rich history or possessions with sentimental value for material wealth. Greed in wealth can destroy our communities and that is what almost ends up happening to the family in the play. Works like the Piano Lesson can help send the message to our youth that it is important to preserve your history and not take for granted what has been done for you in the past.
Therefore, this is why the works of August Wilson are important. The rich preservation of culture is what we need in our world today, and this is exactly what his plays do for us, even though he is gone. We need more efforts like this to preservation all aspects of African-American culture because it takes more than one to let the world know of a great history.
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