Howard Sherman: If Trip Gabriel, the New York Times reporter who wrote yesterday’s story about the dire straits of the August Wilson Cultural Center in Pittsburgh, were steeped in Wilson’s writing, he might have noted a sad irony. In August’s final play of his ten-play Century Cycle, Radio Golf, the plot turns on the fate of a decrepit house in the Hill District, the setting for almost all of the Cycle plays. The home of the great Aunt Ester, a seer and guide who reputedly lived for centuries, is standing in the way of urban redevelopment, until one of the men spearheading the project begins to regret the loss of this historic home and fights, at great personal cost, to save it.
3 comments:
It's really a shame that the August Wilson center project grew so far out of scope. No doubt Mr. Wilson deserves that much recognition and more, especially in his home city of Pittsburgh, but really, things have gone awry, and it's sad to see it happening so publicly. I think for the center to have succeeded, it would need to have started on stronger financial foundations, and with more ideas in place for how to sustain the building. Perhaps preschools, community centers, lessons, meetings, etc, in addition to just performing arts pieces? Perhaps a coffee shop like the one being built at Mr. Wilson's former Hill District home? Sad to say any of these ideas is too late now, but maybe that someday the building can rise to its purpose, with enough sustaining support behind it.
It really is sadly ironic that a predominantly white christian congregation is one of the only remaining renters of an African-American cultural center. As there have been many articles posted on the blog about the plight of the August Wilson Center, it seems as though things are simply getting steadily worse for the organization. Although the thought of some sort of deus-ex-machina arriving to bail the organization out of their debt is pleasant, it also highly unlikely. There have been so many missteps by the management of the organization that at this point it seems like people will reluctantly let it die.
August Wilson was such a great playwright and his legacy adds so much to Pittsburgh's history, that it is such a shame to see an opportunity to honor him go to such waste. It seems that the center, while well intentioned, added nothing to the surrounding community and never had the economic stability to turn it around. Hopefully in the future, there will be a second, more successful attempt at both honoring August Wilson and creating an african american cultural center in Pittsburgh.
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