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Chapter 7 - August Wilson as Predecessor

from Part I - Influences and Inspirations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2025

By
Patrick Maley
Edited by
Khalid Y. Long  and
Isaiah Matthew Wooden
Khalid Y. Long
Affiliation:
Howard University, Washington DC
Isaiah Matthew Wooden
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania
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Summary

August Wilson unlocked new dramaturgical terrain for contemporary playwrights. This chapter explores in greater depth the work of Dominique Morisseau, Ike Holter, and Lynn Nottage, three Black playwrights whose dramas offer unique expressions of Wilson’s influence on the contemporary stage. Musicality and concern for community history lie at the core of each of these playwrights’ dramaturgy, which comes to life in the repetition and revision of series of plays. For each of these writers, as for others on the contemporary stage, this chapter argues that Wilson unearthed fruitful aesthetic terrain.

Keywords

August WilsonAmerican Century CycleContemporary Black DramaIke HolterDominique MorisseauLynn NottageSuzan-Lori Parks
Type
Chapter
Information
August Wilson in Context , pp. 87 - 100
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Further Reading

Jocelyn, L. Buckner, ed., A Critical Companion to Lynn Nottage (London: Routledge, 2016).Google Scholar
Harry J. Elam, Jr., The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004).Google Scholar
Maley, Patrick, After August: Blues, August Wilson, and American Drama (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maley, Patrick, “What Is and What Aint: Topdog/Underdog and the American Hustle,” Modern Drama 56, no. 2 (Summer 2013): 186–205.Google Scholar
Morisseau, Dominique, The Detroit Project (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2018).Google Scholar

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