He's also a cool person with excellent taste in cigars.

Quote of note:

"I'm not sure whether we have an American theater," says Wilson. "We have a European-American theater based on the values and conceptions of European drama. But in order to have an American theater you have to allow all the influences of all the different racial and ethnic groups that make up the country. Then you can come up with a theater that is uniquely and truly American. I don't think just because they do my plays is living up to the responsibilities of truly building an American theater."

In August Company
'Radio Golf' Fulfills August Wilson's Vow To Compete 10-Play African American Cycle
April 17, 2005
By FRANK RIZZO, Courant Staff Writer

Homecoming is too simple a word for it. The scene takes place in late March, when August Wilson returns to the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven to be introduced to an assembly of students of the School of Drama.

This is the custom for the creative team for each main stage production. The event is not just a warm welcoming but celebratory, poignant, historic and right.

Long applause, along with whoops, cheers and tears, greet the arrival of the conquering playwright, who was plucked from obscurity 21 years ago and given a stage to call his own at the Rep. Wilson is bringing his 10-play, decade-by-decade cycle of the African American experience in the 20th century to a close at the Rep with the premiere of "Radio Golf," which begins performances Friday.