SOURCE: "An Interview with August Wilson," in Theater, Vol. 16, No. 1, Fall/Winter, 1984, pp. 50-5.

In the following interview, Wilson discusses various aspects of his works, including themes, symbols, and characters.

August Wilson's play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom garnered rave reviews at the Yale Rep last Spring. It met with even greater success this Fall in New York, where the play opened at the Cort Theatre on October 11, with the same production staff, including director Lloyd Richards, and a majority of the original Rep cast. Wilson leapt from virtual obscurity as a playwright to the leading ranks with only this one play. Ma Rainey, originally produced at the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference in 1982, is, in part, an examination of race relationships in America, set in 1927 against the backdrop of one of the legendary blues singer's recording sessions at a "race division" of Paramount Records. The battling egos of...