Ted S. Warren, Associated Press August Wilson: a born storyteller, but he's also an actor, his face and body filling with the character he imagines. Click photo for larger image. Related Articles: • Stage Review: 'Gem of the Ocean' mixes comedy, drama in its tragic voyage • Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle of Plays

NEW YORK -- We find August Wilson as we often do, talking in a hotel coffee shop.

He's living on the road again, as he does for months at a time, working on a play headed for Broadway or the early stages of the one that will follow, checking on the myriad revivals of his earlier plays, receiving awards or talking to producers -- tending, that is, to the far-flung August Wilson theatrical properties, not quite an empire on which the sun never sets, but a lively concern, always flourishing somewhere.

For the past few weeks, the Wilson concern has been focused on Broadway, where Wilson hangs out regularly in the noisy bustle of the Hotel Edison Cafe, a slightly pretentious name for a decidedly unpretentious hotel diner. We met there just before Thanksgiving, in anticipation of last night's Broadway opening of "Gem of the Ocean," the ninth play in Wilson's unprecedented cycle of plays set in each decade of the 20th century.

Our couple of hours of chat over bottomless cups of coffee ranged from his family, sports, jail and death to the progress of his many projects. Actually, the waitress didn't pour quite as often as she used to -- some of Wilson's appetites are moderating in his 60th year.

Even his smoking is down to two packs a day, but he's still looking to quit. "I have a pact with Kenny [Leon, the director of "Gem"]," he says. "We were going down a hall in Boston and I said, 'You get me to opening night [in New York] and I'll quit smoking.' "

That's "a point of honor," he says. It also suggests thoughts of mortality, along with turning 60 next April.

"There's more behind me than ahead. I think of dying every day. ... Seeing Arafat die -- he was always part of the world -- so [I thought] 'Oh, it's possible to die.' Another little piece of the world chipped off. A lot of my friends from Pittsburgh have died: Rob Penny; Nick Flournoy, he was 57. Oh, I see, I'm still here, so far."

When Wilson turned 50, he felt in his prime.

"I don't feel that way about 60. At a certain age, you should be prepared to go at any time."

'Gem's' ebb and flow

That was later in our talk. To start, Wilson talked about waiting for the arrival later that day of his wife, Constanza Romero, and daughter, Azula, 7, flying in from Seattle to join him for the final sprint toward the opening. Romero is also working on "Gem," for which she designed the costumes. There was still work to do.

"Gem" premiered in early 2003 at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, then was re-cast and rewritten for a summer run at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum. A year and some rewriting later, it played this fall at Boston's Huntington Theatre and was supposed to come directly to Broadway, opening Nov. 11. But one of the major investors backed out. The producing team was changed, bringing in Carole Shorenstein Hays, who had produced Wilson's most profitable work, "Fences," and the opening was re-set for last night.

Financing wasn't the only upheaval. When director Marion McClinton was hospitalized during rehearsals in Boston, Kenny Leon replaced him. Leon's advantages include having played Citizen Barlow in "Gem's" Chicago premiere, as well as directing last season's strong "Raisin in the Sun" on Broadway with "Gem" star Phylicia Rashad.

Wilson doesn't change directors on a whim. Loyalty is a big issue with him. His first six plays came to Broadway with the same director, Lloyd Richards, who decades before had directed the original "Raisin in the Sun" on Broadway.

"You notice he didn't direct Lorraine Hansberry's second play, but he did direct my second, third, fourth. ... And I insisted he direct the 'Piano Lesson' movie."

Richards was a mentor. Wilson uses the boxer-trainer metaphor: "I'm gonna knock him out for Lloyd."

McClinton directed the next two, "Jitney" and "King Hedley II." They go way back; it was McClinton who suggested the title for "Fences."

"I talk to Marion differently than I talked to Lloyd," Wilson says. But with McClinton sick, "we had to move on."

This leads to a discussion about Tommy Maddox losing his job as Steelers quarterback. In that case, Wilson holds to the sports tradition that you shouldn't lose your job because of an injury. "You shouldn't go out like that and have to fight your way back to your job."

But when McClinton recovered, Leon stayed.

"Kenny only had 12 rehearsals [in Boston]. He's just now coming into his own."

They did a lot in Boston, replacing one actor, bringing Anthony Chisholm back as Solly. And in the final week, Wilson cut 20 minutes of text. He was ready to put the cuts back, but says, "I didn't miss them. I had thought you needed that for the characters, but it's like a diamond: You cut away and get to the light."

Kid friendly

Right there in the booth, Wilson starts doing Solly talking about the woman who tries to poison him. He's a born storyteller, but he's also an actor, his face and body filling with the character he imagines. He does Azula, too, a second-grader. They have a regular Sunday family meeting and take turns chairing it.

"Everyone puts what they want on the agenda." For example, Azula raised this issue: "I think I should be allowed to cry. ... You're always saying, 'Don't cry over spilt milk.' [But] how do you know? You're not my body."

At the meeting, they make rules. "Anything you want her to do, you make a contract. Azula likes that, setting up a routine. It's like a game with her."

In Boston, Azula began crying because Constanza wouldn't read from Harry Potter (she's read her all five books). It was pointed out that she had traded that for a TV program, but she argued that Harry Potter is "the most important thing in the world!"

Then you shouldn't have made the trade, she was told. "That's proof I didn't know what I was saying!" she argued. "Mommy should have warned me. It's her fault!"

As Wilson recounts this saga, he gestures and declaims, and you can just imagine the little girl's theatrics. He admires her sense of melodrama and her logical twists. Azula's love of books is a reminder of how Wilson famously educated himself in Pittsburgh's Carnegie Library after walking out of Gladstone High his sophomore year.

"Reading is the key to everything," Wilson says. Azula ran off one baby sitter in Boston because she was always on the phone and didn't play with her. "I think that's pretty cool," says her proud father.

Under the influence of the next baby sitter, whom she loved, Azula became a Red Sox fan. They were in Boston the night the Red Sox won the World Series, and he recalls a guy bouncing down the street, knocking over three trash cans.

"It's like all the rules are suspended," he thought, but he prudently retreated to his apartment.

Asked about the World Series celebration after Mazeroski's 1960 home run, Wilson remembered instantly. He was 15, in detention at Connelley Trade School, and the teacher said, "OK, y'all can go."

He had to go through Downtown, "and I got home at 3 in the morning." He recalls trash, confetti, people drunk: "I was just going around watching."

The cycle and beyond

Eventually, we came to Wilson's works in progress. The biggest is the 10th and final play in the 20th-century cycle, "Radio Golf," set in 1990s Pittsburgh. There will be a reading in February at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, current home of Peter Altman. Altman was the previous head of Boston's Huntington, where so many Wilson works played pre-Broadway runs, and Wilson is loyal.

He has the script almost done with two months to go: "I can't let Peter down." "Radio Golf" will then premiere at Yale Rep, April 22.

"I started at Yale [with 'Ma Rainey' in 1983]. I thought I should end there."

After Yale, "Radio Golf" goes to the Taper in mid-summer, the same slot "Gem" had last year. "I'd love to open in New York in November and be done [with the cycle]."

He gives a big smile, making an expansive gesture: "Yeah, man, I did it!"

There will be life beyond the completed cycle. Wilson will be featured in the Signature Theatre's 2005-06 season and has promised three new plays. First will be "How I Learned What I Learned," his solo autobiographical stand-up. He already knows that one-man rehearsals with director Todd Kreidler will start Aug. 8, 2005.

"I'm thinking of doing just six shows a week. Eight is too hard. I'm not an actor."

He premiered the solo last year in Seattle, did it again at a comedy festival in Aspen and then did it at the last minute recently in Chicago when he was given an award by the Chicago Tribune.

"I was supposed to give a speech, but lectures are boring" -- and work to write. "This was already done. All I had to do was remember it. Todd was shocked how much I remembered."

The response was great: "People jumped out of their seats and began to hoot and holler."

The second Signature play will be "Seven Guitars Too," using his original material for "Seven Guitars," a very different style. "I'd say I've got half of it [written]. It's about seven guys in a police lineup, talking about the killing of Floyd Barton."

"It coulda been most anybody," one of the characters shrugs. And suddenly Wilson is acting them out.

The third play might be "The Coffin Maker," a broad comedy about when Pittsburgh coffin makers go on strike because someone gets elected mayor by campaigning against paying "$500 to bury a wino!"

Here, Wilson launches into a long entertaining preview of a low-tech war between the undertakers and the coffin makers, about Coffin Row, Brothel Row, an old Haitian gunfighter and Eli Watkins, king of the coffin makers, who plays checkers with Papa Morte, Death himself. Little Kid Chocolate dies and can't be buried; Eli has a magic radio out of which come Queen Victoria, the Platters and Fidel Castro; and Papa Morte takes a vacation with the bribe of a TWA ticket.

"I've had this idea since the first Iraq War. It started out as an anti-war short story idea: 'What if the coffin makers went on strike?' ... I just have to figure out how to put all this on stage."

As to the long-anticipated movie of "Fences," Wilson's revised film script still rests with producer Scott Rudin:

"It's a good thing I have a job," he says. And he does a riff on waiting fruitlessly to be called back. "I look at a lot of movies and think, 'They chose to make that!?' But I choose theater. I'm not writing movies, yet, though I intend to. My coffin-maker play would make a great film."

Final act

Somehow, we start talking about jail, where Wilson spent three days when he was 20. He owed back rent and found a padlock on his apartment door. So he called a lawyer who said he could break the lock. He was arrested for that.

"I didn't do nothing," he told them. But it turned out, "Ain't nobody down there who did nothing." The problem was that it was a furnished room, so the lawyer's advice was wrong; the landlord did have a right to padlock it. This segues easily into memories such as geezers share: the people in his neighborhood who had cars, the (then) novelty of women drivers, the novelty of women wearing pants. Candy was a nickel. Gas was 25 cents a gallon.

In 1961, when Wilson started smoking, a pack of cigarettes was 31 cents. Now, in New York, it's $8. Is that an expense he'll start to save, after last night's celebratory cigar? We'll see.