NOW A NETFLIX FILM STARRING VIOLA DAVIS AND CHADWICK BOSEMAN *Two stunning intensely powerful
modern classics about race in 20th century America from the legendary Pulitzer Prize and Tony
Award-winning playwright August Wilson*In Ma Rainey's Black Bottom the great blues diva Ma
Rainey is due to arrive at a run-down Chicago recording studio with her entourage to cut new
sides of old favourites. Waiting for her are the black musicians in her band - and the white
owners of the record company. A tense searing account of racism in jazz-era America that the
New Yorker called 'a genuine work of art'.Fences centres on Troy Maxson a garbage collector
an embittered former baseball player and a proud dominating father in 1950s Pittsburgh. When
college athletic recruiters scout his teenage son Troy struggles against his young son's
ambition his wife who he understands less and less and his own frustrated dreams. 'A
prolific and successful playwright who confines his themes to African American culture... The
level of his achievement is high. This comes powerfully into view when the play is read an
activity for me that is equal to and in some ways more fruitful than seeing its stage
production.' Toni Morrison'In his work August Wilson depicted the struggles of Black Americans
with uncommon lyrical richness theatrical density and emotional heft in plays that give vivid
voices to people on the frayed margins of life' New York Times 'August Wilson has established
himself as the richest theatrical voice to emerge in the U.S. since Tennessee Williams and
Arthur Miller' Time
