Nows and Forevers

I’m a long way from Broadway these days, but I know well one of the nominees for Best Revival of a Play: “The Piano Lesson.”

As a college sophomore, I was in the audience of the premiere on Nov. 23, 1987, at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut. It was completely by accident, and a fortunate one.

My music-history professor had two tickets that she couldn’t use, and asked my class if anyone wanted them. They were for August Wilson’s newest play.

She had me at August Wilson.

I knew August Wilson because a few years before, while at Wesleyan University’s Center for Creative Youth writing program, I had seen one of Wilson’s plays being workshopped during a field trip to the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut. Back then, I wanted to be a playwright and I had spent just about all of my youth on the stage. Connecticut, so well placed next to New York City, was a good place to grow up and dream of the stage.

And August Wilson was one of the playwrights that I knew. And even though I had only been to the Pittsburgh airport, even as a teen-ager I had gotten a glimpse of Wilson’s genius and sweep and the strong sense of place of the Hill District.

“The Piano Lesson” was the next in the Pittsburgh Cycle, taking place in 1936. It starred an actor named Samuel L. Jackson, long before he was ever in “Pulp Fiction” or any Marvel movies. But we didn’t know what the future held for him.

I didn’t have a girlfriend at that moment, so I asked one of my college friends, Peter, if he wanted to go. He wasn’t a literary type and he knew nothing about the stage and even less about Pittsburgh. We sat in the back, among the few students who were at the premiere. I didn’t know much about New Haven and Yale high society, but I could tell that many of those people were in the theatre with us. We wore ties and jackets, but we were without a doubt underclassmen out of place.

I remember being taken to a world I didn’t know, like the best theatre. I remember the acting and the strength of the writing. And I remember Lloyd Richards, the Yale Rep director, gushing about Wilson and “The Piano Lesson.” He was right: “The Piano Lesson” would hit Broadway a few years later, nominated for many Tony Awards and winning not only the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play but the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

But the most enduring memory of that night came after the play was over. Peter and I were among the first people out, into a cool Connecticut night. On the way out, on the sidewalk on Chapel Street in front of the theatre, I spied a bearded man in a tweed cap, smoking.

August Wilson.

I knew him, for only a month or two before I had read a quote from him in Esquire that immediately became my mantra. He looked just like his photo, down to the cap.

“That’s August Wilson,” I told Peter. “The playwright.”

It was clear that I was one of the few people who noticed. The crowd streamed past him, into the night, crossing the street to the Yale campus or turning right or left onto Chapel Street. Wilson kept puffing and no doubt thinking of “The Piano Lesson.”

“Let’s go over,” I told Peter. He tagged along.

Meeting new people, no matter what they do, has never been something that bothered me. I guess I’m an introvert at heart, but I have never had too many jitters in meeting new people. I learned that from my mother and my maternal grandfather, I think, along with my father. That’s the way they were. Good thing I became a journalist, where I’ve been able to use this to good effect.

But then, I was 20 years old and I was walking up to the first playwright I had ever met.

“Mr. Wilson,” I said. “It was fantastic.”

Wilson looked at us, thanked us. I don’t think that the opinion of two sophomores mattered in the grand scheme of things. But he was gracious and appreciative. I told him that I appreciated also what he said in Esquire, that those lines meant a lot to me.

He thanked me, shook my hand, and then we moved on. A couple had realized who we were talking to, and introduced themselves.

We walked down Chapel Street.

Peter was pumped.

“I can’t believe we met the author,” he said.

I couldn’t either. Of all the famous people I’ve met, both as a civilian and as a journalist — including several presidents and any number of Hollywood stars — August Wilson remains in a class by himself. It’s been nearly 40 years, but I’ll never forget.

Nor will I forget Wilson’s words, which I thanked him for.

I clipped the words out of Esquire, and wrote them in my journal and also on a makeshift sign at my desk:

Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.
August Wilson

Looking back, there are few lines that have affected me more, or distilled my life’s mission, than this. Because not only do I write for a living, I write to live. Even though many of those words are only for me. Wilson’s words in Esquire helped me in the aftermath of one of the darkest periods of my life, which had occurred the year before. They have helped me in the dark times since, even if I unevenly applied the advice to the detriment of my loved ones. Wrestling with my demons didn’t always cause my angels to sing.

I wish they had. Do I wish they had.