City of Seattle Dedicates August Wilson Way

The City of Seattle and Seattle Repertory Theatre hosted a dedication ceremony today for August Wilson Way, with the unveiling of an entry portal and stretch of Republican Street honoring the late playwright, who spent his last years living in Seattle.

The portal is a 12-foot high steel and glass door with an image of the playwright, biographical information, and inscriptions from his works that stands at the entrance of a newly named stretch of Republican Street running through the Seattle Center campus from Warren Avenue to Marion Oliver McCaw Hall. Street signs have been erected along the Way, and eventually August Wilson Way will run to Fifth Avenue as part of the Seattle Center Century 21 Master Plan’s proposed redevelopment of the Memorial Stadium site.

During his lifetime, the one-time Tony-winning, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Wilson, who died in 2005, completed his ten play cycle about the history of African-Americans during the entire 20th century. The cycle includes Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fences, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson, Gem of the Ocean, Two Trains Running, Jitney, Seven Guitars, King Hedley II, and Radio Golf.