Approaches to teaching the plays of August Wilson

Abstract

Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist August Wilson is arguably the most prolific storyteller of the African American experience and the most discussed Black playwright in the American academy. As indicated by the book editors, Sandra Richards and Sandra Shannon, Wilson’s works are a “powerful, astonishing [piece of] theater that offers new, restorative possibilities” (3). This book, Approaches to Teaching the Plays of August Wilson, contains a collection of well-written interdisciplinary essays by scholars, directors, and dramaturgs. Dissimilar to previous studies, the book concentrates on pedagogical strategies for examining and interrogating the life and works of August Wilson in a mixture of academic spaces, courses, and structures. Contributors include Paul Bryant-Jackson, Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Harry Elam Jr., James Engstrom, Joan Herrington, Douglas A. Jones, Jr., Alan Nadel, Andrew Scheiber, Von Washington, and Dana Williams.