{"id":1611,"date":"2011-03-09T23:11:35","date_gmt":"2011-03-10T04:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/?p=1611"},"modified":"2017-12-05T20:49:56","modified_gmt":"2017-12-06T01:49:56","slug":"the-book-of-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/?p=1611","title":{"rendered":"The Book of August"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to an accurate portrait of African American life, site<\/a> August Wilson’s cycle of plays examining the 20th century is\u00a0a gift that keeps on\u00a0giving.<\/p>\n

This month Syracuse Stage produced Wilson’s Radio Golf<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Radio,\u00a0<\/em>set in 1990s Pittsburgh,\u00a0revolves around Harmond Wilks (played by Richard Brooks) as he attempts to redevelop a blighted Pittsburgh neighborhood and parlay that venture into a run for mayor.\u00a0 At the climax of the play the audience is\u00a0left with a sense that change is coming, but not without a struggle, or\u00a0a fight.<\/p>\n

A “Talk Back” forum was held by the stage and the actors\u00a0talked about the genius of Wilson and how his work always fosters further examination.<\/p>\n

Leland Gantt (Radio’s<\/em> Sterling) said\u00a0that the actors were on a journey to excavate the\u00a0truth in Wilson’s work (the last he produced before he passed in 2005).<\/p>\n

During a celebration of August Wilson’s work at Syracuse University in 2006, Dramaturg Kyle Bass, said it best: “Wilson gave us<\/em> back to us<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Thomas Jefferson Byrd (Radio’s<\/em> Elder Joseph Barlow), who appeared in Wilson’s\u00a0 Ma Rainey’s Black\u00a0Bottom<\/em>\u00a0at Syracuse Stage in 2009, described interpreting Wilson’s work on stage like eavesdropping on a conversation or peering thru a peephole at a family discussion. He said Wilson was able to avoid stereotypes by being true to the characters. “You know the truth when you hear it,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to an accurate portrait of African American life, site August Wilson’s cycle of plays examining the 20th century is\u00a0a gift that keeps on\u00a0giving. This month Syracuse Stage produced Wilson’s Radio Golf. Radio,\u00a0set in 1990s Pittsburgh,\u00a0revolves around Harmond Wilks (played by Richard Brooks) as he attempts to redevelop a blighted Pittsburgh neighborhood and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[1407,69,71,1459,700,1458,113,70,1456,1729,1457,72],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1611"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23601,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1611\/revisions\/23601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sif.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}