I think all in all, one thing a lot of plays seem to be saying is that we need to, as black Americans, to make a connection with our past in order to determine the kind of future we're going to have. In other words, we simply need to know who we are in relation to our historical presence in America.
— August Wilson
Jazz in itself is not struggling. That is, the music itself is not struggling... It's the attitude that's in trouble. My plays insist that we should not forget or toss away our history.
As soon as white folks say a play's good, the theater is jammed with blacks and whites.
All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.
I know some things when I start. I know, let's say, that the play is going to be a 1970s or a 1930s play, and it's going to be about a piano, but that's it. I slowly discover who the characters are as I go along.
Suffice it to say, I'm not poor.
I first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of a social tumult. I was a poet.
The blues are important primarily because they contain the cultural expression and the cultural response to blacks in America and to the situation that they find themselves in. And contained in the blues is a philosophical system at work. And as part of the oral tradition, this is a way of passing along information.
For me, the original play becomes an historical document: This is where I was when I wrote it, and I have to move on now to something else.
Between speeches and awards, you can find something to do every other week. It's hard to write. Your focus gets splintered. Once you put one thing in your calendar, that month is gone.
Blacks have traditionally had to operate in a situation where whites have set themselves up as the custodians of the black experience.
