[NEohioPAL]August Wilson

[DALE SHIELDS]

Renowned playwright has liver cancer

August Wilson: 'I've lived a blessed life'

Friday, August 26, 2005; Posted: 10:44 a.m. EDT (14:44 GMT)
SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson 
has been diagnosed with liver cancer and told a newspaper in his native 
Pittsburgh that he is dying.

Wilson, 60, who lives in Seattle, was diagnosed with the ailment in June.

"It's not like poker, you can't throw your hand in," Wilson told the 
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a story published Friday. "I've lived a blessed 
life. I'm ready."

Wilson has recently been completing his 10-play cycle chronicling the black 
experience in 20th-century America -- one play for each decade.

Two plays in the cycle, "Fences" and "The Piano Lesson," earned Pulitzer 
Prizes. The 10th play, "Radio Golf," is now running at the Mark Taper Forum 
in Los Angeles.

Wilson's personal assistant, Deanna Levitin, told The Seattle Times until 
very recently, Wilson was working on rewrites of "Radio Golf," and that 
people close to him remain optimistic.

"One of the things I'm proudest of in my career is producing so much of 
August's work here," Seattle Repertory Theater managing director Benjamin 
Moore said. "I'm going to believe that since August is such a feisty guy, 
he'll meet this health challenge like he's met the challenge of writing an 
extraordinary cultural history."

Wilson has lived in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood since 1990. He and 
his wife, Constant Romero, a costume designer he married in 1994, have a 
daughter, Azula. Wilson also has a daughter from an earlier marriage.

"He's taking (the cancer) very well, with a lot of strength and 
determination," his wife told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "It's so hard 
when an illness falls on you. He has so many plans for working."

The Pittsburgh newspaper said doctors had recommended drug therapy followed 
by a liver transplant, but the disease proved too far advanced. Wilson said 
his physicians told him then that he had three to five months to live.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may 
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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Dale Ricardo Shields
ricardo2541 at msn.com

"There are no wrong notes." --Thelonius Monk