American Masters — August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand premieres Friday, February 20 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings) to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Wilson’s birth, the 10th anniversary of his death and Black History Month.
The first documentary about the Tony- and Pulitzer-winning playwright August Wilson is a co-production of THIRTEEN’s American Masters series and WQED.
Unprecedented access to Wilson’s theatrical archives, rarely seen interviews and new dramatic readings bring to life his seminal 10-play cycle chronicling each decade of the 20th-century African-American experience, including the Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning Fences and Pulitzer Prize-winning The Piano Lesson.
Film and theater luminaries including Viola Davis, Charles Dutton, Laurence Fishburne, James Earl Jones, Suzan-Lori Parks and Phylicia Rashad share their stories of the career- and life-changing experience of bringing Wilson’s rich theatrical voice to the stage. Wilson’s sister Freda Ellis, his widow and costume designer Constanza Romero, as well as friends, colleagues and scholars trace Wilson’s influences, creative evolution, triumphs, struggles and quest for cultural determinism before his untimely death from liver cancer.
“Having the opportunity to explore Wilson’s creative process and his tenacity in looking at the African-American experience in the 20th century was one of the most exciting endeavors I have ever had in my film career,” said filmmaker Sam Pollard (Slavery by Another Name, American Masters – Marvin Gaye: What’s Going On), who has earned multiple Emmy and Peabody Awards as producer-editor of documentaries including When the Levees Broke and Spike Lee Presents Mike Tyson.
Filmed in the cities where Wilson made his mark, the documentary begins in Pittsburgh’s Hill District where the future playwright was a brainy, bi-racial child raised in poverty, who dropped out of high school because of bullying and prejudice. Self-educated in the city’s public library and streets, Wilson was influenced by the rising black consciousness of the 1960s and became a young, activist poet.
The film follows his transition to a successful playwriting career, from the founding of the Black Horizon Theater (Pittsburgh) and his early work at the Penumbra Theatre (St. Paul, Minn.) to his big break at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference (Waterford, Conn.). There he began his life-changing collaboration with mentor-director Lloyd Richards, which led to nine original Broadway productions.
The DVD of the film will be available February 24 from PBS Distribution.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/august-wilson-the-ground-on-which-i-stand/about-the-film/3610/
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