The Pittsburgh Cycle is a cycle of ten plays written by August Wilson. Also known as The American Century Cycle (or Century Cycle), each of the ten plays is set with a predominantly black cast in a different decade of the twentieth century. All but one—Ma Rainey's Black Bottom—take place in the historically black Hill District neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The first entry in the cycle, Jitney, premiered in 1982. The last, Radio Golf, premiered in April 2005, shortly before Wilson's death that October. Eight of the plays transferred to Broadway in his lifetime, with Ma Rainey reaching Broadway in both 1984 and 2003. The cycle has earned a collective 72 Tony Award nominations and over 14 Broadway stagings. Five of the ten plays were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, with Fences and The Piano Lesson each earning the award. Wilson is the only playwright to be a six-time Pulitzer finalist.
Wilson developed six of the plays with Lloyd Richards as director, frequently using the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and the Yale Repertory Theatre—both of which featured Richards as artistic director—to workshop plays. Following a break in their relationship during the development of Seven Guitars, Wilson worked with multiple other directors, including Walter Dallas, Kenny Leon, and Marion McClinton. The plays in the cycle also provided early career breakthroughs for various actors, including Charles S. Dutton, Angela Bassett, Courtney B. Vance, Delroy Lindo, Laurence Fishburne, Viola Davis, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, LisaGay Hamilton, and S. Epatha Merkerson.
Three of the plays have been made into feature films, starting with Fences in 2016, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom in 2020, and The Piano Lesson in 2024. A TV film version of The Piano Lesson also aired in 1995 as a part of the Hallmark Hall of Fame series, starring Dutton and Alfre Woodard.
Overview In 1981, August Wilson was a struggling poet and playwright who lived in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He submitted versions of Jitney and the non-cycle play Black Bart and the Sacred Hills to the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwright Conference multiple times starting in 1979. After five rejections, he wrote and submitted an early version of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which was accepted for the 1982 conference. O'Neill artistic director Lloyd Richards favored Wilson, allowing the influential New York Times theater critic Frank Rich to come review the plays-in-progress, despite the conference's ban on press criticism. Rich's rave about Ma Rainey boosted his career.
Over the successive two decades, the cycle's plays frequently debuted at the NPC workshop. In 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, and 1993, he brought each of his new works in the cycle to the O'Neill center. After Wilson struggled to find a way to bring Ma Rainey to Broadway, Richards offered to direct a production at the Yale Repertory Theatre, where he also served as artistic director. Starting in 1984, Richards directed the plays' official world premieres at the Yale Repertory Theatre. With Fences and successive cycle plays, Richards would also direct stagings for different League of Resident Theaters non-profit theater companies, to allow Wilson the chance to rewrite and hone the plays before they reached Broadway. After a break with Richards in 1996, Wilson didn't return to the O'Neill until Richards's retirement, at which point Wilson worked on Gem of the Ocean as an invited playwright-in-residence. Likewise, when Richards retired from Yale Rep after his term as artistic director, Wilson didn't debut a new work there until his final play premiered in April 2005, shortly before his death that October. He worked with other directors as he developed his later work, especially Marion McClinton and Kenny Leon.
The ten plays are alternatively referred to as Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle or as his American Century Cycle (or Century Cycle). Wilson first publicly spoke of the idea in November 1984 to The Pittsburgh Press, commenting that he was in the process of writing a play for each decade of the 1900s to "isolate the most important ideas that confronted blacks." In 1987, Wilson explained his inspiration for the project to The New York Times, saying that he felt black Americans had become disconnected from the traumas of slavery and other historical injustices. He contrasted the black cultural memory to the memory of slavery in Egypt, commemorated worldwide in celebrations of Passover. Wilson had also, in 1977, directed a production of In New England Winter, the second play from Ed Bullins's ultimately unfinished 20-play Twentieth Century Cycle about a group of mid-century black Americans. According to his biographer Patti Hartigan, Wilson felt that the writing was subpar and that he could do a better job of representing the black experience. In an essay from 2000, Wilson described his intentions behind the cycle:The cycle of plays I have been writing since 1979 is my attempt to represent [black American] culture in dramatic art. From the beginning, I decided not to write about historical events or the pathologies of the black community. [...] Instead, I wanted to present the unique particulars of black American culture as the transformation of impulse and sensibility into codes of conduct and response, into cultural rituals that defined and celebrated ourselves as men and women of high purpose.
Works Year of premierePlace of premiereTitleDecadeOpened on BroadwayThe August Wilson Century Cycle .Theatre Communications Group. Retrieved October 7, 2014.1982Allegheny Repertory TheatreJitney1970s2017 – Samuel J. Friedman Theatre1984Yale Repertory Theatre†Ma Rainey's Black Bottom1920s1984 – Cort Theatre1985Yale Repertory Theatre†1950s1987 – 46th Street Theatre1986Yale Repertory Theatre†Joe Turner's Come and Gone1910s1988 – Ethel Barrymore1987Yale Repertory Theatre†1930s1990 – Walter Kerr1990Yale Repertory Theatre1960s1992 – Walter Kerr1995Goodman Theatre†1940s1996 – Walter Kerr1999Pittsburgh Public Theater1980s2001 – Virginia Theatre2003Goodman Theatre†Gem of the Ocean1900s2004 – Walter Kerr2005Yale Repertory TheatreRadio Golf1990s2007 – Cort Theatre Notes: † Reflects works that were previously work-shopped at the Eugene O"Neill Theater Center +Key
Thematic connections The question of individual worth persists throughout the cycle. In Ma Rainey, the black musicians are being subordinated by the white record company managers. In Seven Guitars, four musicians reflect on the senseless murder of their colleague. Herald Loomis, a major character in Joe Turner, is beset by trauma and depression following his seven-year stint on a Tennessee chain gang after being abducted by the titular Joe Turner; the play proceeds partly as Loomis's quest for serenity. In Gem, Citizen Barlow reproaches himself for his theft of a bucket of nails, weighing his own worth against the life of someone unjustly accused of his crime, before he embarks on a supernatural journey of spiritual healing.
Family conflicts recur throughout the cycle. In Jitney, one storyline concerns the relationship between Jim Backer and his troubled son Booster following his release from prison. Fences focuses on the Maxson family, especially patriarch Troy's reproachful attitude toward his son and his infidelity toward his wife Rose, which results in an illegitimate daughter. The primary conflict in The Piano Lesson is between siblings Berneice and Boy Willie, who disagree on whether to sell or preserve the titular family heirloom. King Hedley II features a monologue from the character Tonya to her husband Hedley, where she defends her decision to abort their potential child due to the hopelessness of their milieu.
The narratives throughout the cycle also track the course of real-life history. Characters in Gem and Joe Turner reflect the Great Migration, coming from Alabama or Tennessee, with Pittsburgh as a way-point to the North. The Piano Lesson and Seven Guitars meaningfully depict characters in the midst of the Great Depression and in the wake of World War II, respectively. The end of the color line in the MLB comes shortly before the events of Fences, which fuels the resentment of the main character who had played in the Negro leagues (the character, Troy Maxson, has been compared to Ray Dandridge). The play also features discussion of contemporary players like Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente in that context. The dialogue in Two Trains Running features references to the civil rights and black power movements, as well as local urban renewal. King Hedley II repeatedly comments on the failed promise of the Reagan era, especially for black Americans in cities. Lastly, Radio Golf centers on gentrification and growing (but complicated) black representation in politics.
Language Each of the cycle's plays have been noted for their use of colloquial language and dialect. Critic Maya Philips referred to the vernacular dialogue as "one of the central ways Wilson's characters embody their stations in life, which can't be divorced from the diction, grammar and syntax they use with one another." Wilson wrote that his process for constructing the cycle often originated with a line of dialogue, which he would use to connect individual characters with a broader narrative. He also said that his dialogue was meant to preserve the "street talk" of people he knew growing up in Pittsburgh.
Recurring characters Elder Joseph Barlow, from Radio Golf, is the son of Citizen Barlow and Black Mary, from Gem of the Ocean. He opposes the mayoral candidacy of Harmond Wilks, who is unknowingly the grandson of Caesar Wilks, the antagonist from Gem. The two characters fight over the demolition of Aunt Ester's house, a major setting in Gem.
Hedley from Seven Guitars is the father of the titular character in King Hedley II. The latter Hedley's mother, Ruby, is also in both plays. The Seven Guitars character Canewell reappears in King Hedley II as "Stool Pigeon," in reference to his betrayal of Hedley between the two plays.
Aunt Ester The character Aunt Ester appears or is mentioned in four of the ten plays, starting with Two Trains Running. In that play, the characters speak about visiting her house at 1839 Wylie Avenue, in the Hill District, where she helps to cleanse their souls. In King Hedley II, it's revealed that she died at the age of 366. The plot of Radio Golf partly revolves around gentrification and the demolition of Aunt Ester's house.
The only play in which she appears onstage is Gem of the Ocean, where she plays a lead role. Ester, in that play, is 285 years old, having arrived in the country under enslavement with the first Africans in Virginia in 1619. In Gem, she helps cleanse the soul of the character Citizen Barlow, who feels guilt for a theft that resulted in the wrong person being accused and dying. Ester ushers Barlow through a memory of the Middle Passage and the so-called "City of Bones."
Academic Harry J. Elam Jr. argued in 2005 that Ester represented a bridge in the black community between Christianity and more traditional African strains of spirituality, representing a collective ancestor. Her death in King Hedley II reflects the growing disconnection in the 1980s between the community as a whole and its collective memory. In 2000, Wilson wrote about Ester's role in the broader cycle.Aunt Ester has emerged for me as the most significant persona of the cycle. The characters, after all, are her children. The wisdom and tradition she embodies are valuable tools for the reconstruction of their personalities and for dealing with a society in which the contradictions, over the decades, have grown more fierce, and for exposing all the places it is lacking in virtue.
The Four B's