NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- August Wilson will conclude his 10-play, decade-by-decade chronicle of the African-American experience in the 20th century with the world preem of "Radio Golf" at New Haven's Yale Repertory Theater in April 2005.
The new work, set in the '90s in Pittsburgh's Hill District, concerns two golf-loving real estate developers who plan to tear down the former home of aunt Esther after the death of the mystical, over 300-year-old woman who figures in several of the cycle's plays.
She was a central character in "Gem of the Ocean," Wilson's last work, which was produced in 2003 at Chicago's Goodman Theater and L.A.'s Mark Taper Forum. Phylicia Rashad played aunt Esther in the L.A. production; play is eyed for Broadway in the fall.
No director is yet named for the Yale Rep production.
Yale Rep had a long association with Wilson when Lloyd Richards was artistic director in the '80s, producing "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," "Fences," "The Piano Lesson" and "Two Trains Running." Wilson has not had a play produced there for 15 years. The new production is being presented in association with Ben Mordecai, a commercial producer who has brought Wilson's plays to the stage over the past 20 years.
In September a.d. James Bundy will present the world preem of Sarah Ruhl's "The Clean House," which won this year's Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.
The dark comedy concerns the complicated relationships among a doctor, her husband, her sister and the maid.
Rolin Jones' "The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow" will follow in October. Written by a third-year student at the Yale School of Drama, the play received its world premiere last year at California's South Coast Repertory, directed by David Chambers, who is on the Yale faculty.
Next up in November will be Lillian Groag's comedy "The Ladies of the Camellias," directed by Bundy, followed by productions of Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors" in February and August Strindberg's "Miss Julie" in March.
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