(upbeat background music) - Pitt and the new University Library System, are just thrilled to death that we have this collection.

(upbeat background music) - August Wilson's plays are so rich, they're so important.

(upbeat background music) - Collection's mainly about his professional career and seeing how never ending that was day in and day out.

- Visiting the archive can be like a treasure hunt in the items that you get to see, the things you get to discover.

(upbeat background music) (upbeat jazz music) (audience clapping) - [Narrator] It was the evening of March 3rd, 2023 and the Hillman Library at the University of Pittsburgh in Oakland was alive with the sounds of music and excitement.

(upbeat jazz music) Libraries are usually quiet places, but this was a special occasion.

- It is my distinct pleasure to welcome you to this public celebration of the opening of the August Wilson archive.

- [Narrator] Pitt had tried for several years to acquire the collection as a way to preserve the legacy of one of Pittsburgh's most celebrated citizens.

- We are so fortunate to be able to have this collection, one that's destined to influence and give back to current and future generations in Pittsburgh and beyond.

(upbeat background music) - The competition for the archives was stiff, and rightfully so, but you know, there's no place like Pittsburgh (chuckles).

(upbeat background music) - [Narrator] The idea to bring the collection to Pittsburgh began more than a decade after Wilson's death back in 2005.

Ed Galloway oversees special collections.

- [Galloway] So, the story really goes back about six years ago, our new director of the library system, Dr. Kornelia Tancheva, inquired, "Where's the August Wilson Archive?

"Show me the August Wilson archive."

And of course, we said, we don't have the August Wilson archive.

- We now have an ocean of material for many scholars.

(upbeat background music) - [Narrator] The archive was with August's widow, Costanza Romero Wilson, in Seattle, Washington.

- Through that, then, became building relationships.

(upbeat background music) - [Narrator] August Wilson was born and raised in this house in Pittsburgh's Hill District, but the university felt there were other compelling reasons why Wilson's widow should allow the archive to come to his hometown.

- So much is happening around August Wilson in the city, between the revitalization of the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, as well as all the efforts to restore his childhood home on Bedford Avenue in The Hill.

The new renovations of the library, all of that played a role in letting her know how we would manage the collection, how important this collection would be.

- [Narrator] It took three years before an agreement was finally reached.

- Constanza has actually said in a presentation that August never told her what to do with the material and I think at the end of the day, that made sense for it to come here.

- [Narrator] The archive was huge, so big in fact, that it had been housed in a storage unit in Seattle.

- So we then had to work with that company to move the collection from Seattle to Pittsburgh.

So that happened in the fall in August of 2020 when an 18 wheeler pulled up to our facility, unpacked, and unloaded August Wilson's Archive.

(upbeat background music) - [Narrator] Wilson, it appears, kept all kinds of things.

- A newspaper with notes scribbled on the margins, a book of matches, a scribbled calendar with events written in, a grocery list, a menu on a place mat scribbled with notes, wooden roosters, metal roosters, glass roosters, playbills, more roosters.

If you can imagine, these were some of the items inside the 450 plus boxes that I inherited after August's passing.

He never threw away a thing.

(upbeat background music) - [Diael Thomas] So it's quite a large collection.

- [Narrator] Diael Thomas is the collection's curator of outreach and engagement.

Her job is to raise awareness of the archive among students, educators, artists, and community organizations.

- So 450 boxes, and about 150 of those contain his personal library.

So thousands of books that he personally owned as well as his personal music collection.

But then the vast majority of the collection is chronicling his writing career.

And so a large chunk of that is the "American Century Cycle" plays wherein we have drafts, we have scripts.

- [Narrator] The "American Century Cycle" consists of 10 plays, written by Wilson for each decade of the 20th century.

- Those plays put Pittsburgh on the world cultural map, just like William Faulkner put that town in Mississippi outside of Oxford on the cultural map so that when people think of the black urban experience they're as likely to think today of Pittsburgh or the Hill District as of Harlem, and they didn't before that.

- So here we see materials from an unknown production of "Gem Of The Ocean".

And so when the main character, Aunt Ester, folds a paper boat from her bill of sale.

And so this is an example of a prop paper boat that she uses in the play.

And then here we're moving into materials from "The Piano Lesson".

And so what we have here are a type of script called prompt books.

And so these are more detailed scripts that usually have, you know, set designs, they have costume designs.

And then as well, we've got some photographs from The Piano Lesson".

In the back we have some from the Yale Repertory production which featured Samuel L. Jackson, which is super exciting.

And then in the front, I believe this is from the O'Neill production.

- [Narrator] The archive also includes Wilson's prestigious honors, a Peabody Award, and a Pulitzer Prize for "The Piano Lesson".

A second Pulitzer for his play "Fences".

These awards and others, as well as everything else in the collection, have all been carefully cataloged, packed, then placed in specially constructed boxes, and stored under optimal climate conditions, including over 700 notebooks dating as far back as the 1960s.

- [Bill Daw] And that's some of the oldest material that we have in the archive.

- [Narrator] Bill Daw is curator for material pertaining to the theater and performing arts.

- These notebooks aren't made to last 50 plus years and so we have to take some extra precautions.

All of the notebooks have been scanned and we've created user copies for the researchers to access.

This is a notebook probably from the late 80s or early 90s that has content relating to "Two Trains Running", and so this is the facsimile copy that we have.

- [Narrator] A glimpse into the complex mind of a man who was not only a writer, but an artist.

- So we see a lot of doodles and self portraits, but we also see things like this really fine visual art.

You know, these are done with pastels.

This is one of my personal favorites, it's definitely a self portrait.

This is also another personal favorite.

So it's titled "The Wilson Quartet".

He drew the one half of the face and then he photocopied it multiple times and taped them together.

- [Narrator] Images of Wilson's drawings can now be seen around the library.

(upbeat background music) Members of the public are already exploring the Wilson memorabilia.

- [Ricky Davii] I don't know that much about August Wilson outside of "The Big Three", is what I call it, "Fences", "Ma Rainey", and "The Piano Lesson".

But I'm very intrigued.

I've been doing a little deep dive, which is why I'm here today, to learn a little bit more.

(gentle background music) See the genius that the man was.

(gentle background music) - [Narrator] It's been nearly two decades since August Wilson died, which means an entire generation may be unaware of his enormous impact, but the goal of this archive is to perpetuate a legacy.

- And witnessing all the things that are going on, I think he would say he appreciates that people enjoy his plays.

(gentle background music) He never liked to be the center of attention.

He sees himself as simply the conduit.

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