AUGUST WILSON CELEBRATED WITH 10 YEAR COMMITMENT FROM STC

Artistic Director Peggy Shannon announces STC's ten-year committment to present all of August Wilson's plays over the next ten years, and in chronological order. “His artistic voice," she says, "helped to define the American Theatre of the 20th century and will serve as a bright light throughout the 21st century." STC will thus become the first professional theater in the country to make such a committment.
Adds Managing Director Mark Standriff, “August Wilson is one of the greatest playwrights in theatre history and deserves to have the kind of celebration usually reserved for Shakespeare, Shaw, and O'Neill." Wilson undertook the task of chronicalling the African-American experience in the United States. He is the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fences, The Piano Lesson, King Hedley II, Ma Rainy's Black Bottom, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Seven Guitars, Two Trains Running, Jitney and Radio Golf. His plays have been produced all over the world.
This daunting project begins with the first play of August Wilson’s groundbreaking ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle, chronicling the African-American experience through each decade of the 1900s. "Gem of the Ocean," the first play in the cycle, is set against the legacy of emancipation in 1904 Pittsburgh, where the legendary Aunt Esther, the drama's fiery matriarch, welcomes into her Hill District home Solly Two Kings, who was born into slavery and scouted for the Union Army, and Citizen Barlow, a young man from Alabama searching for a new life.
For more information on STC’s 2008-2009 season visit http://www.sactheatre.org/. For ticket information call the Wells Fargo Box Office at 916-443-6722 or toll free at 888-4-STC-TIX.