Denzel Washington leads fundraising for August Wilson House

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Denzel Washington is leading the fundraising charge for the August Wilson House, which will host a ground-blessing ceremony Wednesday at 1727 Bedford Ave., the childhood home of the award-winning playwright August Wilson.

The first phase of fundraising, led behind the scenes by Mr. Washington — an Oscar-winning actor and director of the film version of Mr. Wilson’s “Fences” — is complete and will be revealed at the ceremony to herald the start of construction at the Hill District site, a project of the Daisy Wilson Artist Community Inc.

In addition to the invitation-only event at 2 p.m., the August Wilson House invites Hill residents to learn about plans for the building in a tent display on the grounds.

Mr. Wilson, who died in 2005 at age 60, was a leading voice of 20th-century theater and won two Pulitzer Prizes for his American Century Cycle plays, which chronicle the AfricanAmerican experience in the 20th century. Nine of the 10 plays are set in the Hill District.

The project will celebrate the playwright’s legacy, while his childhood home is resurrected as a hub for Pittsburgh artists and scholars to collaborate, create and add their voices to the national landscape across all disciplines.

“This project signals the importance of people, place and memory in the development of one’s life — it is a timely lesson on what it means to work together in the preservation of diverse stories that center our humanity and have the power to transform the world,” Paul A. Ellis Jr., the playwright’s nephew and founder of the Daisy Wilson Artist Community, said in a statement.