CVK
Renowned playwright August Wilson died of liver cancer on October 2nd at the age of 60. Below is an excerpt from the Village Voice’s obituary about Wilson:

As conscious of this history as he was of his own divided parentage (his father was not only white but a German immigrant), August was driven by two partially conflicting goals: that black American artists occupy a recognized place in the mainstream, and that black America celebrate the culture it had evolved in its own communities. He wanted there to be black theaters, with all-black administrative and artistic staffs, and disdained the idea of black actors appearing in Shakespeare and other “white” European classics; at the same time (as black cultural nationalists often pointed out derisively), he saw his plays produced in the mainstream “white” theaters of the resident-theater movement and Broadway. This dilemma drew him into controversies, such as the one that led to his famous “debate” with Robert Brustein, in which, to my mind, neither side made very convincing arguments (a fact that, as a friend to both men, I found deeply dismaying). I still remember Bob Brustein declaring that every resident theater had black artists on its roster, and August replying, with well-earned rue, “generally in February”—Black History Month being when most nonprofits schedule their “token” African American play.