SOURCE: "Breaking Barriers: August Wilson," in Staging Difference: Cultural Pluralism in American Theatre and Drama, edited by Marc Maufort, Peter Lang, 1995, pp. 267-85.

In the following essay, Shafer analyzes Wilson's life and his techniques as a playwright, and chronicles the stage productions of his plays.

August Wilson is one of only seven American playwrights to win two Pulitzer Prizes, and one of only three black playwrights to receive the prize. Unlike many black playwrights he has written plays which appeal to both black and white audiences. When Ma Rainey's Black Bottom opened in 1984, Wilson was completely unknown in the theatre. In the following ten years he achieved such success that, as critic Paul Taylor has noted, "Wilson is the only contemporary dramatist, apart from Neil Simon, who is assured a Broadway production and his have been the pioneer black works at many regional theatres" ["Emptying the Contents of...