The late playwright August Wilson always wanted a boxed-set collection of the 10 plays that make up his critically acclaimed dramatization of the African-American experience in the 20th century. The much-lauded playwright, who died in 2005, will get his wish this month when the nonprofit Theatre Communications Group publishes The August Wilson Century Cycle, a deluxe 10-volume, hardcover slipcased collection of the plays that make up his life’s work.
TCG publisher Terry Nemeth said TCG will publish 3,000 copies of the $200 boxed set. The set includes an overall introduction by drama critic John Lahr as well as introductory essays for each play written by playwrights Tony Kushner and Suzan-Lori Parks, writers Toni Morrison, Samuel G. Freedman and Ishmael Reed and actors Laurence Fishburne and Phylicia Rashad. “Every essay is different and wonderful,” said Nemeth, highlighting the theater community’s respect for Wilson. “Everyone that was on our list agreed to write,” he said, “and not for a lot of money.”
The author of the Pulitzer Prize—winning plays Fences (1987) and The Piano Lesson (1990), Wilson was originally published by Penguin and switched his publishing to TCG in the late 1980s. He began talking with Nemeth about the boxed set project in 2004. “He knew he was ill, but it had not been announced,” said Nemeth. It was two years ago this month that Wilson succumbed to liver cancer.
More Than a Publisher
Founded in 1960 with a grant from the Ford Foundation, TCG is a nonprofit resource organization that represents more than 450 nonprofit theaters around the country. It provides organizational support and grants and organizes conferences and workshops. TCG also runs a monthly magazine and its book publishing program, which has more than 250 titles in print.
“Publishing is one side of what we do,” said Nemeth, “and books are becoming even more important to us.” Nemeth noted that TCG also publishes playwright Tony Kushner’s 1993 Pulitzer Prize—winning play Angels in America, which has sold more than 500,000 copies.
Nemeth said TCG has shipped about a third of the initial printing, and he emphasized that marketing and promotion “will include anything and everything.” The set will be marketed to libraries—the Heinz Foundation has funded the distribution of 200 sets to libraries in Pennsylvania—as well as sold online and through brick-and-mortar stores. “We can’t rely on bookstores to sell a $200 book,” said Nemeth. He pointed out that there are at least 34 productions of Wilson’s plays planned at theaters around the country—including staged readings at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and in Cincinnati and Minneapolis-St. Paul—and TCG will also offer the boxed set through its member theaters. Nemeth also plans to have copies of the set at a memorial event planned for October 22 at the August Wilson Theater in New York City.
Nemeth said that books were always important to Wilson, who grew up in Pittsburgh and dropped out of high school. “His whole education came from reading in libraries,” said Nemeth. “We asked ourselves what he would have wanted and this boxed set is as close as we could get.”
