Kennedy Center Will Present August Wilson's 10-Play Cycle in 2008

The Kennedy Center will present August Wilson's 10-play cycle about African-American life in the 20th century in a month-long festival in spring 2008, according to The New York Times. The plays will be presented as staged readings, with each week's selections presented together the following weekend. Titled "August Wilson's 20th Century," the series will have Kenny Leon, director of a Broadway-bound production of Wilson's final play, Radio Golf, as its artistic director.

Each Wilson play is set in a different decade, and all take place primarily in Pittsburgh. In chronological order, they are Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Fences, Two Trains Running, Jitney, King Hedley II and Radio Golf. Wilson, who died of cancer in October 2005, is this season's featured playwright at off-Broadway's Signature Theatre Company, which is mounting revivals of Seven Guitars, Two Trains Running and King Hedley II.