Dan Rodricks: Wish granted, an August Wilson series in Baltimore theaters | STAFF COMMENTARY

Pardon me while I quote myself. Here’s a paragraph that appeared in my final column of 2023: “I’d like to see a Maryland theater company or a collaboration of theater companies devote an entire year to the ‘20th century cycle’ of August Wilson’s plays. Imagine seeing all of those decade-by-decade plays … on stages throughout the state in a year’s time. That would be epic.”

When I expressed that desire, I had no idea that such a thing was in the works.

Looks like epic is upon us.

Starting with this weekend’s opening performances of “Gem Of The Ocean” at Arena Players, 10 Baltimore theater companies will stage Wilson’s 10 plays about 20th century Black life over the next three years. That means a whole new generation of theater-goers will get to see live performances of all of Wilson’s great works.

Though Wilson, who died in 2005 at age 60, did not write his plays in chronological order, the plan is to present them that way: “Gem of the Ocean,” set in 1904; “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” set in 1911; “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” set in 1927; “The Piano Lesson,” 1936; “Seven Guitars,” 1948; “Fences,” 1957; “Two Trains Running,” 1969; “Jitney,” 1977; “King Hedley II,” 1985; and “Radio Golf,” set in 1990.

Some, if not all, of these plays have been staged in Baltimore over the last three decades. Morgan State University’s theater department gave us “Jitney” in 2012, marking a return to Baltimore of a play Wilson refined and finished here, during a run at Center Stage in 1999.

For the August Wilson Century Celebration, the Fells Point Corner Theater will stage “Jitney” in the 2006-2007 season.

Everyman Theater’s 2019 production of “Radio Golf” was superb. While set in Pittsburgh, its themes of social mobility and class, and its references to urban renewal, were profoundly relevant to Baltimore. It would be grand to see any Wilson play in the hands of that excellent theater company again. Its founder and artistic director, Vincent Lancisi, says Everyman is committed to one of the plays for the August Wilson Century Celebration, probably in the 2025-2026 season. The list of participating theaters and their play selections have not been finalized.

Center Stage is listed as a participant in the project, as it should be. Center Stage has had a long history of Wilson plays. Among the most memorable was a haunting production, in 2008, of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” set in a Pittsburgh boarding house during the Great Migration.

In September and October, the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company will stage “Joe Turner” for its part of the Wilson series.

Center Stage has committed to staging “King Hedley II,” according to information supplied by Chesapeake Shakespeare. The latter’s producing executive director, Lesley Malin, conceived the idea of this three-year festival.

“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” is slated for production by Artscentric in March of next year. “Ma Rainey” is one of two Wilson plays that have been adapted for film, and it was a stellar rendering, released in 2020, with Oscar-nominated performances by Viola Davis and, in his final role, the late Chadwick Boseman.

The other Wilson play made into a movie is “Fences,” starring Davis and Denzel Washington, who also directed the film. “Fences” premiered on Broadway in 1987 with James Earl Jones in the lead. The play earned Wilson the Pulitzer Prize for drama, and, that same year, he published another play, “The Piano Lesson,” that earned him a second Pulitzer just three years later. The man was extravagantly talented and prolific.

“The Piano Lesson” brings me to Roc Dutton. The Baltimore-born actor and director, whose theatrical career started while he was an inmate in a Maryland prison, was in the original Broadway cast of that play, in the role of the headstrong and hard-headed Boy Willie. He received a 1990 Tony nomination for his performance, his second for a role in a Wilson play. (Dutton received a Tony nomination six years earlier, when he made his Broadway debut as Levee, the trumpet player in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”)

You can see why Dutton won acclaim for his stage acting by going to YouTube and searching for a 1995 Hallmark Hall of Fame TV adaptation of “The Piano Lesson.” I have watched it several times. It made me wish I had seen Dutton’s Boy Willie on stage.

Charles “Roc” Dutton, who is 73 now, is retired from acting and, last I heard, was residing in Georgia after living for several years in Maryland. He had a place in Howard County and owned horses before moving to Baltimore for a time, then down south.

Dutton’s story is legend: Grew up in East Baltimore, incarcerated as a young man in the 1960s and 1970s, took an interest in Black playwrights and acting while inside the walls, came out of prison, earned a degree from Towson State University and, in the 1980s, a masters degree in acting from Yale School of Drama. He went “from jail to Yale,” then to Broadway, movies and television.

As the full August Wilson Century Celebration comes to pass, it would be a bonus to have Roc Dutton back in Baltimore for one of the plays — if not in a role on stage, then in the best seat in the house. He is deserving of a hometown tribute.