August Wilson's celebrated 10-play cycle captures 100 years of African
American life during each decade of the 20th century. The cycle begins
in the early 1900s, when wounds from slavery and the Civil War were
still fresh, and closes in the 1990s, when even a large and
increasingly influential black middle class would not escape
persistent racial tensions. In the fall of 2013, close to 100
theater artists from across the globe convened at The Greene Space at
WNYC in Lower Manhattan to record, for the very first time, all
10 plays in August Wilson’s American Century Cycle – a magnum
opus in the American theater. Dr. Indira Etwaroo, Executive Producer,
in partnership with the August Wilson Estate, led by Constanza Romero,
Wilson's widow, brought together many longtime Wilson collaborators
and interpreters, including Tony Award-winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson,
the project's Artistic Director, and Associate Director and Tony
Award-nominee Stephen McKinley Henderson. Experience a Great American
Master Week by week, beginning Sunday, April 26, 2015 with the first
two plays, The Greene Space will release audio of a live recorded
dramatic reading – decade-by-decade – of August Wilson's
American Century Cycle, as well as video and photographs. Check back
here each Sunday to experience, for a limited time, the next play in
the cycle. Audio will only be available through August 26, 2015.
