New Award Created For Theaters That Complete the August Wilson Cycle

A new August Wilson American Century Cycle Award honors theater companies that have staged all ten Cycle plays.

The award is the creation of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and co-sponsored by the August Wilson House - the playwright's hometown newspaper and his childhood home in Pittsburgh's Hill District. Constanza Romero Wilson and the August Wilson Estate are providing advisory support.

The intention is to celebrate the mutual connection between the playwright's roots and the American theater. The award "recognizes that the ten plays, though grounded in the rich culture of the playwright's native Hill, have found their true, enduring life in theaters all across the country," according to the originator, Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette senior theater critic and a member of the August Wilson House Board.

So far, over a dozen theaters have qualified, starting with Chicago's Goodman Theater and the Seattle Repertory Theatre, which completed their Cycles a few months apart in 2007, and the Black Rep of St. Louis and Pittsburgh Public Theater, both in 2008. The Denver Center Theatre and St. Paul's Penumbra Theatre followed in 2009.

Then in 2012-13 came Boston's Huntington Theater, Houston's Ensemble Theatre, the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre and Anthony Bean Community Theatre in New Orleans.

The American Stage in St. Petersburg, FL, completed its Cycle in 2017. Theaters in Honolulu, Oakland, CA, Omaha and Miami are said to have qualified, but the award creators are seeking full details. They are also planning to include Broadway (not exactly a theater company, but in a sense, sure), which finished its Cycle in 2017. Many other companies are making progress toward the goal.

Each qualifying theater receives a commemorative plaque, presented at a suitable occasion. Just two have been presented so far -- Seattle Rep and American Stage -- with plans to present three more in the next few months. Other theaters can expect calls to make plans. A plaque at the August Wilson House will celebrate all the qualifying theaters.

The organizers hope to hear from theaters they may have overlooked. The award requires that all the plays must have received full productions, not staged readings and not tours.

The next step may be similar awards for directors and actors who have completed their own personal Cycles.

Read more in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here.

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