Childhood

Wilson’s maternal grandmother walked from North Carolina to Pennsylvania in search of a better life. Wilson was born Frederick August Kittel, Jr. in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the fourth of six children, to Sudeten-German immigrant baker/pastry cook, Frederick August Kittel, Sr. and Daisy Wilson, an African-American cleaning woman, from North Carolina. Wilson’s mother raised the children alone until he was five in a two-room apartment above a grocery store at 1727 Bedford Avenue; his father was mostly absent from his childhood. Wilson would go on to write under his mother’s surname. The economically depressed neighborhood where he was raised was inhabited predominantly by black Americans and Jewish and Italian immigrants. Wilson’s mother divorced his father and married David Bedford in the 1950s, and the family moved from the Hill District to the then predominantly white working-class neighborhood of Hazelwood, where they encountered racial hostility; bricks were thrown through a window at their new home. They were soon forced out of their house and on to their next home.

In 1959 Wilson was one of fourteen African-American students at the Central Catholic High School, where he dropped out after one year. He then attended Connelley Vocational High School but found the curriculum unchallenging. He dropped out of Gladstone High School in the 10th grade in 1960 after his teacher accused him of plagiarizing a 20-page paper he wrote on Napoleon I of France. Wilson hid his decision from his mother because he did not want to disappoint her. At the age of 16, he began working menial jobs, where he met a wide variety of people on whom some of his later characters were based, such as Sam in The Janitor (1985).

Wilson made such extensive use of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh to educate himself that it later awarded him an honorary high school diploma, the only diploma it has ever bestowed. Wilson, who had learned to read at the age of four, began reading black writers at the library when he was 12 and spent the remainder of his teen years educating himself through the books of Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps, and others.

Career

Wilson knew that he wanted to be a writer, but this created tension with his mother, who wanted him to become a lawyer. She forced him to leave the family home and he enlisted in the United States Army for a three-year stint in 1962, but left after one year and went back to working various odd jobs as a porter, short-order cook, gardener, and dishwasher.

Frederick August Kittel, Jr. changed his name to August Wilson to honor his mother after his father’s death in 1965. That same year he discovered the blues as sung by Bessie Smith, and he bought a stolen typewriter for $10, which he would often pawn when money was tight. At 20 he decided he was a poet and submitted his poetry to such magazines as Harper’s. He began to write in bars, the local cigar store, and cafes, longhand on table napkins, and on yellow notepads, absorbing the voices and characters around him. He liked to write on cafe napkins because, he said, it freed him up and made him less self-conscious as a writer. He would then gather the notes and type them up at home. Gifted with a talent for catching dialect and accents, Wilson had an “astonishing memory,” which he put to full use during his career. He slowly learned not to censor the language he heard when incorporating it into his work.

Malcolm X’s voice would influence his life and work (such as The Ground on Which I Stand, 1996). Both the Nation of Islam and the Black Power spoke to him regarding self-sufficiency, self-defense, and self-determination, and he appreciated the origin myths that Elijah Muhammad supported. In 1969 Wilson married Brenda Burton, a Muslim, and Wilson converted to Islam in order to sustain the marriage. He and Brenda had one daughter, Sakina Ansari-Wilson, and divorced in 1972.

In 1968, he co-founded the Black Horizon Theater in the Hill District of Pittsburgh along with his friend Rob Penny. Wilson’s first play, Recycling, was performed for audiences in small theaters, schools, and public housing community centers for 50 cents a ticket. Among these early efforts was Jitney, which he revised more than two decades later as part of his 10-play cycle on 20th-century Pittsburgh. He had no directing experience. He recalled: “Someone had looked around and said, ‘Who’s going to be the director?’ I said, ‘I will.’ I said that because I knew my way around the library. So I went to look for a book on how to direct a play. I found one called The Fundamentals of Play Directing and checked it out.”

In 1976 Vernell Lillie, who had founded the Kuntu Repertory Theatre at the University of Pittsburgh two years earlier, directed Wilson’sThe Homecoming. That same year Wilson saw Sizwe Banzi is Dead at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, his first professional play. Wilson, Penny, and poet Maisha Baton also started the Kuntu Writers Workshop to bring African-American writers together and to assist them in publication and production. Both organizations are still active.

In 1978 Wilson moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota, at the suggestion of his friend director Claude Purdy, who helped him secure a job writing educational scripts for the Science Museum of Minnesota. In 1980 he received a fellowship for The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. He quit the Museum in 1981 but continued writing plays. For three years, he was a part-time cook for the Little Brothers of the Poor. Wilson had a long association with the Penumbra Theatre Company of St Paul, which gave the premieres of some Wilson plays. Fullerton Street which has been unproduced and unpublished was written in 1980. It follows the Joe Louis/Billy Conn fight in 1940 and the loss of values attendant on the Great Migration to the urban North.

In 1987, Saint Paul’s mayor George Latimer named May 27 “August Wilson Day.” He was honored because he was the only person to both come from Minnesota and win a Pulitzer Prize.

In 1990 Wilson left St Paul after getting divorced and moved to Seattle. There he would develop a relationship with Seattle Repertory Theatre, which would become the only theater in the country to produce all of the works in his ten-play cycle and his one-man show I Learned What I Learned.

Although he was a writer dedicated to writing for theater, a Hollywood studio proposed filming Wilson’s play Fences. He insisted that a black director be hired for the film, 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 of the culture of black Americans.” The film remained unmade until 2016 when a film adaptation directed by Denzel Washington and starring Washington and Viola Davis began filming.

Wilson received many honorary degrees, including an honorary Doctor of Humanities from the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as a member of the University’s Board of Trustees from 1992 until 1995.

Wilson maintained a strong voice in the progress and development of the (then) contemporary black theater, undoubtedly taking influences from the examples of his youth, such as those displayed during the Black Arts Movement. One of the most notable examples of Wilson’s strong opinions and critiques of what was black theater’s state in the ’90s was the “On Cultural Power: The August Wilson/Robert Brustein Discussion”—is just one of the times where Wilson spoke plainly for the progression of black theater. Here, Wilson engages in a fairly heated discussion with Robert Brustein. As with all debate neither truly came out ‘right’, however, both played a hand in calling attention to a huge issue and shedding light on how poor of a state the form was in. Undeniably, Wilson left an everlasting imprint on Black Theater’s development.

Work

Wilson’s best-known plays are Fences (1985) (which won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award), The Piano Lesson (1990) (a Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.

Wilson stated that he was most influenced by “the four Bs”: blues music, the Argentine novelist and poet Jorge Luis Borges, the playwright Amiri Baraka and the painter Romare Bearden. He went on to add writers Ed Bullins and James Baldwin to the list. He noted: “From Borges, those wonderful gaucho stories from which I learned that you can be specific as to a time and place and culture and still have the work resonate with the universal themes of love, honor, duty, betrayal, etc. From Amiri Baraka, I learned that all art is political, although I don’t write political plays. From Romare Bearden, I learned that the fullness and richness of everyday life can be rendered without compromise or sentimentality.” He valued Bullins and Baldwin for their honest representations of everyday life.

Like Bearden, Wilson worked with collage techniques in writing: “I try to make my plays the equal of his canvases. In creating plays I often use the image of a stewing pot in which I toss various things that I’m going to make use of—a black cat, a garden, a bicycle, a man with a scar on his face, a pregnant woman, a man with a gun.” On the meaning of his work, Wilson stated “I once wrote this short story called ‘The Best Blues Singer in the World,’ and it went like this— “The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, and Balboa was drowning.” End of story. That says it all. Nothing else to say. I’ve been rewriting that same story over and over again. All my plays are rewriting that same story.”

The Pittsburgh Cycle

Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, also often referred to as his Century Cycle, consists of ten plays—nine of which are set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District (the other being set in Chicago), an African-American neighborhood that takes on a mythic literary significance like Thomas Hardy’s Wessex, William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, or Irish playwright Brian Friel’s Ballybeg. The plays are each set in a different decade and aim to sketch the Black experience in the 20th century and “raise consciousness through theater” and echo “the poetry in the everyday language of black America”. He was fascinated by the power of theater as a medium where a community at large could come together to bear witness to events and currents unfolding.

Wilson noted:

“I think my plays offer (white Americans) a different way to look at black Americans,” he told The Paris Review. “For instance, in Fences they see a garbageman, a person they don’t really look at, although they see a garbageman every day. By looking at Troy’s life, white people find out that the content of this black garbageman’s life is affected by the same things – love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty. Recognizing that these things are as much part of his life as theirs can affect how they think about and deal with black people in their lives.”

Although the plays of the cycle are not strictly connected to the degree of a serial story, some characters appear (at various ages) in more than one of the cycle’s plays. Children of characters in earlier plays may appear in later plays. The character most frequently mentioned in the cycle is Aunt Ester, a “washer of souls”. She is reported to be 285 years old in Gem of the Ocean, which takes place in her home at 1839 Wylie Avenue, and 322 in Two Trains Running. She dies in 1985, during the events of King Hedley II. Much of the action of Radio Golf revolves around the plan to demolish and redevelop that house, some years after her death. The plays often include an apparently mentally impaired oracular character (different in each play)—for example, Hedley Sr. in Seven Guitars, Gabriel in Fences, or Hambone in Two Trains Running.

Chicago’s Goodman Theatre was the first theater in the world to produce the entire 10-play cycle, spanning from 1986 to 2007. Two of the Goodman’s productions—Seven Guitars and Gem of the Ocean—were world premieres. Israel Hicks produced the entire 10-play cycle from 1990 to 2009 for the Denver Center Theatre Company. Geva Theatre Center produced all 10 plays in decade order from 2007 to 2011 as August Wilson’s American Century. The Huntington Theatre Company of Boston has produced all 10 plays, finishing in 2012. During Wilson’s life, he worked closely with The Huntington to produce the later plays. Pittsburgh Public Theater was the first theater company in Pittsburgh to produce the entire Century Cycle, including the world premiere of King Hedley II to open the O’Reilly Theater in Downtown Pittsburgh.

TAG – The Actors’ Group, in Honolulu, Hawaii, produced all 10 plays in the cycle starting in 2004 with Two Trains Running and culminating in 2015 with Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. All shows were Hawaii premieres, all were extremely successful at the box office and garnered many local theatre awards for the actors and the organization.

Two years before his death in 2005, August Wilson wrote and performed an unpublished one-man play entitled How I Learned What I Learned about the power of art and the power of possibility. Recently produced at New York’s Signature Theatre and directed by Todd Kreidler, Wilson’s friend and protégé, How I Learned to explore his days as a struggling young writer in Pittsburgh’s Hill District and how the neighborhood and its people inspired his amazing cycle of plays about the African-American experience.

Personal life

Wilson was married three times. His first marriage was to Brenda Burton from 1969 to 1972. They had one daughter, Sakina Ansari, born in 1970. In 1981 he married Judy Oliver, a social worker; they divorced in 1990. He married again in 1994 and was survived by his third wife, costume designer, Constanza Romero, whom he met on the set of The Piano Lesson. They had a daughter, Azula Carmen Wilson. Wilson was also survived by siblings Freda Ellis, Linda Jean Kittel, Donna Conley, Barbara Jean Wilson, Edwin Kittel, and Richard Kittel.

Wilson reported that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer in June 2005 and been given three to five months to live. He died on October 2, 2005, at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, and was interred at Greenwood Cemetery, Pittsburgh, on October 8, 2005, aged 60.

Legacy

The childhood home of Wilson and his six siblings, at 1727 Bedford Avenue in Pittsburgh was declared a historic landmark by the State of Pennsylvania on May 30, 2007. On February 26, 2008, Pittsburgh City Council placed the house on the List of the City of Pittsburgh’s historic designations. On April 30, 2013, the August Wilson House was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

In Pittsburgh, there is an August Wilson Center for African American Culture.

On October 16, 2005, fourteen days after Wilson’s death, the Virginia Theatre in New York City’s Broadway Theater District was renamed the August Wilson Theatre. It is the first Broadway theatre to bear the name of an African-American.

In Seattle, WA along the south side of the Seattle Repertory Theatre, the vacated Republican Street between Warren Avenue N. and 2nd Avenue N. on the Seattle Center grounds has been renamed August Wilson Way.

 

 

Honors and awards

1986: Whiting Award for Drama
1987: Pulitzer Prize for Drama – Fences
1987: Tony Award for Best Play – Fences
1987: Outer Critics Circle Award – Fences
1987: Artist of the Year by Chicago Tribune
1988: Literary Lion Award from the New York Public Library
1988: New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play – Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
1990: Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts and Distinguished Pennsylvania Artists
1990: Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play – The Piano Lesson
1990: Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play – The Piano Lesson
1990: New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play – The Piano Lesson
1990: Pulitzer Prize for Drama – The Piano Lesson
1991: Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame award
1991: St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates
1992: American Theatre Critics’ Association Award – Two Trains Running
1992: New York Drama Critics Circle Citation for Best American Play – Two Trains Running
1992: Clarence Muse Award
1996: New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play – Seven Guitars
1999: National Humanities Medal
2000: New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play – Jitney
2000: Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play – Jitney
2002: Olivier Award for Best New Play – Jitney
2004: The 10th Annual Heinz Award in Arts and Humanities
2004: The U.S. Comedy Arts Festival Freedom of Speech Award
2005: Make Shift Award at the U.S. Confederation of Play Writers
2006: American Theatre Hall of Fame.

Plays

Recycle (1973)
Black Bart and the Sacred Hills (1977)
Fullerton Street (1980)
Jitney (1982)
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1984)
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1984)
Fences (1987)
The Homecoming (1989)
The Coldest Day of the Year (1989)
The Piano Lesson (1990)
Two Trains Running (1991)
Seven Guitars (1995)
King Hedley II (1999)
How I Learned What I Learned (2002)
Gem of the Ocean (2003)
Radio Golf (2005)

Wikipedia

Multiple nominations
As of 2024 ceremony:

George C. Wolfe – 24
Audra McDonald – 10
Paul Tazewell – 9
August Wilson – 9
LaChanze – 8
Harold Wheeler – 7
Stephen Byrd – 6
Rashad V. Chambers – 6
Kenny Leon – 6
Lloyd Richards – 6
Ron Simons – 6
Dede Ayite – 5
Gregory Hines – 5
Alia Jones – 5
Bill T. Jones – 5
Donald McKayle – 5
Emilio Sosa – 5
Camille A. Brown – 4
Brandon Victor Dixon – 4
Savion Glover – 4
David Alan Grier – 4
Allen Lee Hughes – 4
Toni-Leslie James – 4
James Earl Jones – 4
Brian Stokes Mitchell – 4
Brian Moreland – 4
Mbongeni Ngema – 4
Condola Rashad – 4
Phylicia Rashad – 4
Stew – 4
Daryl Waters – 4
Hilton Battle – 3
Vinnette Carroll – 3
Viola Davis – 3
André De Shields – 3
Debra Martin Chase – 3
Micki Grant – 3
Jeremy O. Harris – 3
Joshua Henry – 3
Geoffrey Holder – 3
Henry LeTang – 3
Lynn Nottage – 3
Leslie Odom, Jr. – 3
Wendell Pierce – 3
Tonya Pinkins – 3
Gilbert Price – 3
Ruben Santiago-Hudson – 3
Diane Scott Carter – 3
Melvin Van Peebles – 3
Courtney B. Vance – 3
Kara Young – 3
Mary Alice – 2
Debbie Allen – 2
Gretha Boston – 2
Charles Brown – 2
RuPaul Charles – 2
Chuck Cooper – 2
Jordan E. Cooper – 2
Cleavant Derricks – 2
Colman Domingo – 2
Ann Duquesnay – 2
Charles S. Dutton – 2
Justin Ellington – 2
Cynthia Erivo – 2
George Faison – 2
Laurence Fishburne – 2
K. Todd Freeman – 2
Irene Gandy – 2
Whoopi Goldberg – 2
Corey Hawkins – 2
Luther Henderson – 2
Stephen McKinley Henderson – 2
Linda Hopkins – 2
Ernestine Jackson – 2
LaTanya Richardson Jackson – 2
Michael R. Jackson – 2
Samuel L. Jackson – 2
Nikki M. James – 2
Quincy Jones – 2
Joaquina Kalukango – 2
John Kani – 2
Eartha Kitt – 2
John Legend – 2
Adriane Lenox – 2
Claudia McNeil – 2
S. Epatha Merkerson – 2
Patina Miller – 2
Zakes Mokae – 2
Dominique Morisseau – 2
Sahr Ngaujah – 2
Winston Ntshona – 2
Sophie Okonedo – 2
Jeremy Pope – 2
Billy Porter – 2
Josephine Premice – 2
Vivian Reed – 2
Roger Robinson – 2
Anika Noni Rose – 2
Diana Sands – 2
Anna Deavere Smith – 2
Ron Taylor – 2
Lynne Thigpen – 2
Tamara Tunie – 2
Leslie Uggams – 2
Ben Vereen – 2
Adrienne Warren – 2
Denzel Washington – 2
Jason Michael Webb – 2
Lillias White – 2
Dick Anthony Williams – 2
Billy Wilson – 2
Oprah Winfrey – 2
Jeffrey Wright – 2
Samuel E. Wright – 2
Multiple wins
As of 2023 ceremony:

Audra McDonald – 6
George C. Wolfe – 5
Hinton Battle – 3
James Earl Jones – 3
LaChanze – 3
Ron Simons – 3
Rashad V. Chambers – 2
Viola Davis – 2
Geoffrey Holder – 2
Bill T. Jones – 2
Debra Martin Chase – 2
Billy Porter – 2
Phylicia Rashad – 2

~*~

 George C. Wolfe Reigns as the Most Nominated African-American Theater Artist
Renowned writer-director George C. Wolfe has brought to Broadway works like Angels in America, Jelly’s Last Jam, and The Wild Party. He is the most Tony-nominated black theater artist, with 23 Tony nominations and five wins. He was most recently nominated for directing The Iceman Cometh in 2018. 2018 – Broadway.com 

 

In 1962, Diahann Carroll became the first Black woman to win a Tony for best actress in a lead role of a musical. She starred in No Strings, the first musical Richard Rodgers produced after the death of his longtime collaborator Oscar Hammerstein II.

 

• Leslie Uggams

  1968

  Leslie Uggams, who won her Tony Award for her Broadway debut in Hallelujah, Baby! and was also Tony-nominated for her work opposite Brian Stokes Mitchell in August Wilson’s King Hedley II.

  

  Leslie Uggams in “Hallelujah, Baby!” (Photo: Friedman-Abeles/NYPL)

  

  Leslie Uggams won her award for best leading actress in a musical. She played Georgina, an ambitious woman making it through the Great Depression, in Hallelujah, Baby.

  

James Earl Jones

1969, 1987, 2007

 

Since his Broadway debut in 1957, Jones has won many awards, including a Tony Award and Golden Globe Award for his role in The Great White Hope. Jones has won three Emmy Awards, including two in the same year in 1991, and he also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role in the film version of The Great White Hope. He is also known for his voice acting, most notably as Darth Vader in the Star Wars film series and Mufasa in Disney’s The Lion King, as well as many other films, stage, and television roles.

James Earl Jones has actually won the Tony for best lead actor in a play twice. He earned the first for his performance in The Great White Hope in 1969, then a second in 1987, for August Wilson’s Fences. In addition, Jones received a 2017 Tony for lifetime achievement in the theater.

1969 – James Earl Jones Makes Tony History
For his leading turn in The Great White Hope, James Earl Jones was awarded Best Actor in a Play at the Tony Awards, the first African-American winner in any play category. The acting legend is also one of the few artists to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award, giving him the status of EGOT.

Melba Moore

1970

Melba Moore won the best-featured actress in a musical for her role as Lutiebelle in Purlie, based on Ossie Davis’ Purlie Victorious.

Beatrice Melba Hill (born October 29, 1945), best known by her stage name,

Melba Moore is an American singer, actress, and entertainer. Moore is the daughter of saxophonist Teddy Hill and R&B singer Bonnie Davis.
Moore began her performing career in 1967 as Dionne in the original cast of the musical Hair along with Ronnie Dyson and Diane Keaton. Moore replaced Keaton in the role of Sheila. In 1970, she won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Lutiebelle in Purlie. She would not return to Broadway until 1978 when she appeared (as Marsinah) with Eartha Kitt in Timbuktu! but left the show after a few weeks and was replaced by Vanessa Shaw. Following the success of Purlie, Moore landed two big-screen film roles, released two successful albums, 1970’s I Got Love and Look What You’re Doing to the Man, and co-starred with actor Clifton Davis in the then couple’s own successful variety television series in 1972. Both Moore and Davis revealed that the show was canceled after its brief run when their relationship ended. When Moore’s managers and accountants left her in 1973, she returned to Newark and began singing in benefit concerts.

In addition to her Tony Award, her music career brought additional accolades. She was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1971 for ‘Best New Artist’. Her 1975 second album, Peach Melba, saw her get a Grammy nomination. In 1976, she earned another Grammy nomination for Best Rhythm & Blues Vocal Performance – Female for the song “Lean on Me”, Moore was also nominated for Best Female Rock Vocal in 1986 for “Read My Lips”. Moore is also the 2012 Recipient of the Atlanta Black Theatre Festival Theatre Legend Award. Moore was inducted into the Official Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame on October 4, 2015, in Detroit. Moore received the prestigious 2015 Sandy Hosey Lifetime Achievement Award during the Artists Music Guild’s 2015 AMG Heritage Awards broadcast held on November 14, 2015, in North Carolina.

Cleavon Little

1970

Cleavon Little won the best-featured actor in a musical for her role as Purlie in Purlie, based on Ossie Davis’ Purlie Victorious.

 

Melba Moore and Cleavon Little
PURLIE
March 15, 1970 “Purlie” based on Ossie Davis’ “Purlie Victorious,”
Purlie is a musical with a book by Ossie Davis, Philip Rose, and Peter Udell, lyrics by Udell, and music by Gary Geld. It is based on Davis’s 1961 play Purlie Victorious, which was later made into the 1963 film Gone Are the Days! and which included all of the original Broadway cast, including Ruby Dee, Alan Alda, Beah Richards, and Godfrey Cambridge.

 

Mary Alice

1987

Fences

 

LaChanze earned her first Tony Award nomination, for best-featured actress in a musical, for her work as Ti Moune in the premiere of Once on This Island in 1990. In 2005, she played Celie in the musical The Color Purple, winning best actress for the starring role. She made a return to Broadway in 2014 as Kate in If/Then, also starring Anthony Rapp and Idina Menzel; and in 2018 is one of three performers playing the title figure at various ages in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, earning her another lead actress nomination.

 

 

Roger Robinson

2009

Roger Robinson
2009

Bryan Bedder/Getty Images
Roger Robinson made his Broadway debut opposite Al Pacino in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? in 1969. Forty years later, Robinson won a Tony Award for best performance by a featured actor in a play for the 2009 revival of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by August Wilson, a playwright whose gritty yet lyrical works have earned many black actors awards recognition over the decades.

 

Adrienne Warren

David Alan Grier

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play
Best known for his comedic performances on the large and small screen over the last three decades, Grier took home his first-ever Tony Award for his moving performance as Tech Sergeant Vernon C. Waters in the Broadway revival of A Soldier’s Play.

Kenny Leon

Best Revival of a Play
Kenny Leon accepted the Best Revival trophy on behalf of A Soldier’s Play, which he directed for its 2020 run on Broadway.

 

 

Irene Gandy

Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theater
Legendary Broadway press agent and producer Irene Gandy took home the honor after 50 years in the industry, marketing and promoting Black productions and producing classics like Porgy & Bess and Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.

 

Beverly Jenkins 

Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theater
Stage Manager Beverly Jenkins has worked on roughly 30 productions over the years, including The Lion King, Aida, Dreamgirls, and A Bronx Tale.

 

Woodie King, Jr.

Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theater
Legendary director and producer Woodie King, Jr. boasts a long and impressive list of productions under his belt, perhaps most notably A Rasin in the Sun and For Colored Girls.

 

 

“Audra McDonald is the most lauded Broadway performer winning a whopping six Tony Awards in both musical and dramatic categories. And she may be receiving her seventh for the revival of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair du Lune” when the 74th annual Tonys take place Sept. 26th at the venerable Winter Garden Theatre.

Despite that record, it took a long time for Black artists to be acknowledged by the Tonys, which were first handed out in 1947. It wasn’t until 2004 that a Black actress won for a lead performance in a play: Phylicia Rashad broke this barrier with her win for a revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.” Hansberry was the first Black artist to be nominated for Best Play in 1960 for the original production of “A Raisin in the Sun” as were its director Lloyd Richards and stars, Sidney Poitier and Claudia McNeil.

It took 14 years for the first Black playwright to win the top Tony: Joseph A. Walker for “The River Niger.” August Wilson followed in 1987 for “Fences.” George Wolfe, as producer, won the award in 1994 for “Angels in America: Perestroika” again in 2003 for “Take Me Out.” Ron Simons was the most recent Black winner in 2013 for “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.”

Richards was the first Black play director to win for “Fences” in 1987. George Wolfe won in 1993 for “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches” and Kenny Leon won in 2014 for the revival of “A Raisin in the Sun.”

The first Black actor to win for his leading role in a play was James Earl Jones in 1969 for “The Great White Hope” (he win again in 1987 for “Fences”). South African artists John Kani and Winston Ntshona shared in the award for “Sizwe Banzi is Dead/The Island” and Denzel Washington on in 2010 for a revival of “Fences.”

Since Rashad’s historic win, Viola Davis picked up her second Tony for the revival of “Fences” in 2010; Cicely Tyson received her Tony in 2013 for the revival of “The Trip to Bountiful”; and McDonald earned a Tony in 2014 for “Lady Day at the Emerson’s Bar & Grill.”

PREDICT the Tony winners through September 26

Godfrey Cambridge was the first Black nominee for Featured Actor (Play) for “Purlie Victorious” in 1962 but it wasn’t until two decades later that the legendary South African performer Zakes Mokae won for “Master Harold…and the Boys.” Ten years later, Laurence Fishburne prevailed for “Two Trains Running.” Jeffrey Wright picked up this Tony in 1994 for “Angels in America: Perestroika.” The most recent Black winner was Courtney B. Vance in 2013 for “Lucky Guy.”

Diana Sands was the first Black nominee for Featured Actress (Play) for 1964’s “Blues for Mister Charlie.” The first to win was Trazana Beverley in 1977 for ”For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.” followed by Mary Alice in 1987 for “Fences”; L. Scott Caldwell in 1988 for “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”; Audra McDonald in 1996 for “Master Class” and 2004’s “A Raisin in the Sun”; Lynne Thigpen in 1997 for “An American Daughter”; Viola Davis in 2001 for “King Hedley II’ ; and Sophie Okonedo in 2014 for “Raisin in the Sun.”

Diahann Carroll made history in 1962 as the first Black winner of Best Actress (Musical) for Richard Rodgers’ “No Strings.” Other winners include Leslie Uggams in 1968 for “Hallelujah Baby!”; Jennifer Holliday in 1982 for “Dreamgirls”; LaChanze in 2006 for “The Color Purple”; Audra McDonald in 2012 for “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess”; Patina Miller in 2013 for “Pippin”; and Cynthia Erivo in 2016 for the revival of “The Color Purple.”

Cleavon Little, best known for the 1974 Mel Brooks’ classic” “Blazing Saddles,” was the first Black winner of Best Actor (Musical) for 1970’s “Purlie,” followed three years later by Ben Vereen for “Pippin.’ Other Black winners in this category include Ben Harney in 1982 for “Dreamgirls”; Gregory Hines in 1992 for “Jelly’s Last Jam”; Brian Stokes Mitchell in 2000 for the revival of “Kiss Me, Kate”; Billy Porter in 2013 for “Kinky Boots” and Leslie Odom, Jr. in 2016 for “Hamilton.”

Juanita Hall was the first Black winner at the Tonys, claiming the Featured Actress (Musical) award for “South Pacific” in 1950. Harry Belafonte did the same on the featured actor side four years later for “John Murray Anderson’s Almanac.”

Eighteen years after Hall’s win, Lillian Hayman took home the Tony for “Hallelujah Baby!” Other Black winners include Melba Moore in 1970 for ‘Purlie”; Nell Carter in 1978 for “Ain’t Misbehavin’”; Audra McDonald in 1994 for “Carousel” and in 1998 for “Ragtime”; Anika Noni Rose in 2004 for “Caroline, or Change” and Renee Elise Goldsberry in 2016 for “Hamilton.”

It was 21 years after Belafonte’s victory before Ted Ross was honored for his role as the Cowardly Lion in “The Wiz.” Other Black winners in this category include Hinton Battle, who won for 1981’s “Sophisticated Ladies,” 1984’s “The Tap Dance Kid” and 1991’s “Miss Saigon; Daveed Diggs in 2016 for “Hamilton” and Andre DeShields in 2019 for “Hadestown.”

Geoffrey Holder was the first Black nominee and winner for Director (Musical) for “The Wiz”; he also won in the costume design category. George C. Wolfe, who has received 24 nominations, is the only other Black winner of this category for 1996’s “Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk.”

Ken Harper, as producer, was the first Black nominee and winner of Best Musical for “The Wiz.” Among other Black winners of this award: Whoopi Goldberg for 2002’s “Thoroughly Modern Millie”; Tamara Tunie for 2007’s “Spring Awakening” and Ron Simons in 2014 for “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder.”

It wasn’t until 2008 that there was the first (and to date only) Black winner of Best Book (Musical) when Stew prevailed for “Passing Strange.” Likewise, the only Black composer to win was Charlie Smalls way back in 1975 for “The Wiz.”

Several Black artists have been recipients of special Tony Awards including Pearl Bailey in 1968; Diana Ross in 1977: Lena Horne in 1981 for “Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music”; Sarah Jones in 2006 for “Bridge & Tunnel”; James Earl Jones in 2017; and both Harold Wheeler and Jason Michael Webb for “Choir Boy” in 2019.”

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Tony Award SIDEBAR – Connections