CMU School of Drama


Sunday, April 13, 2008

Kennedy Center readings get to the heart of August Wilson's 'Pittsburgh Cycle'

Post Gazette: "It was theater heaven, August Wilson division -- seven directors and 41 actors playing 77 characters in 10 plays, each presented in four staged readings over five weeks at Kennedy Center in March and April."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This was such a great idea because it sounds like it made performing the entire Wilson Cycle doable. The Wilson Cycle is such a big project, I imagine it would be really challenging (although wonderful) to perform fully in a long "epic" string like the article describes. I especially like that this article points out how much creativity was brought to the table because the actors were restricted to a reading. This article suggests that read throughs can be really effective ways of exploring a play for its text and getting that particular aspect of a play across to the audience. While some may think a read through is not "doing a play justice," I think it is a great tool for understanding a play based on what you hear verbally as opposed to what is communicated visually or with other sounds.