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FROM OUR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

August Wilson was one of the most profound dramatists I have ever had the pleasure of meeting and working with. I remember in one of my first encounters with him, I was in awe as I watched him speak in Princeton before a national gathering of leaders from the American Theatre. There he was, expressing what we as Black theatre artists and people of color have always wanted to say and share with our colleagues and the world but never could, at least not in the way he so powerfully and eloquently did that night. His words. Our dreams. It was magic. And it was that magic and grandness of spirit that he brought shortly afterwards to Crossroads when he wanted to rework his very first play, “Jitney”, and chose to do so at Crossroads, with us. 

So for Crossroads to be doing “Fences” now, it’s a profound and resonating homecoming as I see it. August had been with us for only a month or so back then, but his touch on our lives and theatre has never left us. Up until now, in all of our history we had never done a production of “Fences”. To be doing it today, for me, is to be celebrating August’s enduring love for his people, his culture and history, the blues and jazz and so much more. But in “Fences”, at its heart, I also discovered his immense love for family, personal dreams lost and found, our stories, passions and humor, and given all of our imperfections, the power of forgiveness. That’s what we re-discover in ourselves when we meet the Maxson family in “Fences”. And that is why I wanted so much to bring it to Crossroads, and in so doing, bring August back too.

Ricardo Khan