whatchusay?! ::: Playwright August Wilson Dying of Liver Cancer

Lead Story

Clip of the Month: Slave Dungeons on Goree Island

More... | TrackBack (0) | Clip Archive

WhatchuTHINK: mine your mind

FORWARDEVER MEDIA CENTER

Writer Alex Haley writing The Autobiography of Malcolm X with Brother Malcolm.

"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."
- Malcolm X

Mission

The Forwardever Media Center is 100% committed to providing unconventional writing workshops and media literacy training to "at-risk" Black youth, particularly males, ages 14 through 24. Working in partnership with The Mentoring Center in Oakland, CA., the Center's writing workshops, website internship, and film forums, help students develop critical thinking skills and discover their creative talents. We recruit youth for our programs from the California Youth Authority (the state's largest prison for youth) as well as from universities and high schools. This cross-pollination of young minds creates dynamic shared experiences.

Programs

Whatchusay Cinema–A monthly film forum hosted at schools or community centers in Northern California that explores issues such as race, class, gender, and society. Students are joined by a panel of activists, educators, athletes, entrepreneurs, etc. to rate the films and convene roundtable discussions about corresponding relevant issues in society. For info about film screenings and schedules contact: cheo@whatchusay.com

Writing Workshops–We offer intensive seminars in journalism, creative writing, cultural criticism, new media, film production, etc. These seminars are taught at the center, located at 1224 Preservation Park, Oakland, CA, 94612. They are also available on location, at schools, community and detention centers, churches, etc. For info about class schedules contact: cheo@whatchusay.com

Internships–Whatchusay.com offers competitive internships to young writers who have clearly demonstrated a passion for the craft of writing or media production. The 3-month internship covers news writing and reporting, feature writing, creative writing, media literacy and new media. Working in partnership with community based organizations, universities and international and national media outlets, we produce a pipeline of informed journalists of color who will go on to create their own independent media organizations or work for major media organizations.

More...

« 5000 Soccer Fans in Haiti Witness Machete Massacre | Main | Message to Bush: Bagdad is in New Orleans »

Playwright August Wilson Dying of Liver Cancer

By Christopher Rawson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"It's not like poker, you can't throw your hand in," he said by phone from Seattle. "I've lived a blessed life. I'm ready."

Doctors at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle discovered his condition in June and recommended immediate chemoembolization -- cancer-fighting drugs injected directly into the tumor -- followed by a liver transplant. But the disease proved too far advanced for treatment. Wilson said his physicians told him then that he had a life expectancy of three to five months.

"I'm glad I finished the cycle [of plays]," Wilson said, referring to his famed Pittsburgh Cycle. An unequaled achievement in American drama, it chronicles the tragedies and aspirations of African Americans in 10 plays, one set in each decade of the 20th century.

The final and chronologically latest in the cycle, "Radio Golf," set in 1997, takes place, like all but one of the other nine, in Pittsburgh's Hill District. It premiered at New Haven's Yale Repertory Theatre in April and is currently having its second production at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum (through Sept. 18).

Wilson spent the two months after learning of his illness working on a major re-write of "Radio Golf," although his condition did not allow him to go to Los Angeles for the rehearsals, the first such absence in his career.

A Pittsburgh native, Wilson moved to St. Paul, Minn., in 1978 and to Seattle in 1990, where he lives with his wife, Constanza Romero, and their daughter, Azula Carmen Wilson, who will be 8 this week. He has an older daughter by a previous marriage, Sakina Ansari.

Wilson's plays include "Fences," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," "The Piano Lesson" and "Jitney." Together, the 10 of the Pittsburgh Cycle have won him a Tony Award, Olivier Award, two Pulitzer Prizes, five New Play Awards/Citations from the American Theatre Critics Association and seven New York Drama Critics Circle Awards. He also was nominated for an Emmy award.

His many other honors include honorary doctorates (from the University of Pittsburgh, among others), Rockefeller and Guggenheim fellowships, a National Humanities Medal and the 2003 Heinz Award in Arts and Humanities. He is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

One additional honor of which Wilson is especially proud: He has the only high school diploma issued by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, testimony to his experience of leaving school at 15 in disgust at being accused of falsifying a paper he wrote on Napoleon Bonaparte and then educating himself in his local Carnegie Library.

At present, he is working against time, as much as his condition allows, on a number of writing projects.

Posted on August 30, 2005 2:18 AM