Best of - August Wilson and Lloyd Richards: The Voice of Genius

What It Takes®

Academy of Achievement

Film, Politics, Arts, Self-help, Sports, Society & Culture, Success, Literature, Humanitarian, Military, Social Justice, Technology, Podcast, Achievement, Music, Science

4.6 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2021

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the past few weeks, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp honoring playwright August Wilson, and Netflix released a film version of Wilson's celebrated play, "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom." It stars Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman, in his final role. That is why we were inspired to revisit this episode, which originally posted in 2017. It tells the story of two giants of American theater: Wilson, and his longtime collaborator, director Lloyd Richards. Together they brought many award-winning plays to Broadway - not only "Ma Rainey," but also "Fences," "The Piano Lesson" and others. Wilson started out as a poet, but he turned to writing plays to bring stories of African-American life to the stage. It was Lloyd Richards who recognized his talent and helped him shape it. Richards was already an icon in the theater world, for directing "A Raisin in the Sun." In this episode you'll hear him tell the story behind that ground-breaking production, and you'll hear both these theater legends describe how they came to meet and have one of the most successful artistic collaborations in history. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2017-2021

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	There's a beautiful new US postage stamp out honoring the playwright August Wilson.
0:05.6	It's part of the Postal Systems Black Heritage Series and it's a forever stamp
0:10.7	which is fitting considering the staying power of August Wilson's plays.
0:15.7	They are always in production somewhere, but Wilson seems to be having quite a moment at this
0:21.2	moment, even though theaters have had to go mostly dark during the
0:25.0	pandemic. In addition to the stamp there's a Netflix film version of his play
0:30.2	Ma Rainey's Blackbottom that has gotten rave reviews.
0:35.0	They don't care nothing about me.
0:38.7	All they want is my voice. Well, didn't learn that and they're going to treat me the way I
0:48.4	want to be treated no matter how much you heard them. They're back there right now calling me all kind of name.
0:57.0	Call me everything but a child of God, but they can't do nothing else because they
1:01.8	ain't got what they wanted yet.
1:04.0	Soon as they get my voice down and one of them recording machines,
1:08.0	then it's just like I'd be some horror and they roll over and put their pants on. They ain't got no use for me then.
1:16.1	Viola Davis stars as Ma Rainey and Chadwick Bozeman in his final role stars as Levy.
1:23.0	I can say yes or whoever I please what you got to do with it.
1:26.0	I know how to handle white folks.
1:28.0	I've been handling them for 32 years.
1:30.0	Now you're going to tell me how to do it?
1:31.0	Just because I say yes I don't mean I spoke to a bime.
1:34.0	I know what I'm doing.
1:35.2	Let me handle it my way.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Academy of Achievement, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Academy of Achievement and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.