The estate of the playwright August Wilson has, for the first time, granted the rights to record all 10 of his plays about African-American life in the 20th century to New York Public Radio’s Jerome L. Greene Performance Space in New York. Constanza Romero, Mr. Wilson’s widow and executor of his estate, and Indira Etwaroo, executive producer of the Greene Space, announced Wednesday that the project will take place in 2013, with directors, cast and dates to be announced later.
The project currently calls for dramatic readings of each play before a live studio audience to be recorded for the New York Public Radio archives. The performances will also be streamed live on New York Public Radio Web sites and the Web sites of select organizations around the country that have an interest in Mr. Wilson’s work, Ms. Etwaroo said in an interview Wednesday. New York Public Radio includes WNYC, WQXR, the Greene space, New Jersey Public Radio and their respective Web sites.
“I met and talked with Constanza Romero and I pitched the idea to her,” Ms. Etwaroo said of the August Wilson project. “It was something she said she’d been wanting to do. This will be a way for artists, scholars, historians and educators to have access to what we like to think of as a blueprint for presenting Wilson’s work. It’s a sound collage unto itself, in terms of the vocabulary and the vernacular.”
Ruben Santiago-Hudson, the actor and director, will be the executive producer of the project…
Read more: NY Times
