Visited there about a yr after it opened...expensive building but sparsely attended. The NYT article says that these days they make a small amount of money by renting it out on Sundays to a largely white megachurch.
Unwelcome downtown? Pitt. has a nice modern subway system, and there's fairly cheap parking nearby at the Grant St Transpo Ctr.
Yes, I never. I have no idea who that playwright is, nor have I ever cared.
Is anyone surprised? Check out Detroit. Or the corruption in charter schools in Dallas. Or Obama’s nine trillion dollar deficit spending.
The grifter class can’t handle money. It seems to disappear when in their hands.
Sounds a lot like a well known disciple of Bill Ayers that I know.
This has been a local story for some time. So it made the NY Slimes now? I can guess they’re hoping for a rich benefactor to swoop in and save them.
Hasn't he called P Diddy, Kanye, Jay-Z, or Beyonce?
I chalk this up to the simple fact that there are way too many specialized museums out there that focus on subjects that no one gives a s__t about. In some cases, its a shame. Symphonies are losing money left and right and having to scale down. Symphony Halls are shutting down. And these type of “art” museums are notorious for NOT attracting visitors.
Most remotely modern “art” and “literature” is crap and does not connect with the average person. So why should they come to this Wilson Center? Building this was a feel-good PC project — a museum dedicated to an African American — that ultimately no one cares about.
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Not to be confused with "The Great American Hammer Museum."
That right there is racist!
Come to think of it, so is your screen name.
You mean that Oprah, JayZ, Spike Lee, Belefonte, Sharpton, Jackson, Freeman and the Obamas won’t save it? They don’t want to share the wealth?
Black people have never supported Wilson’s plays. I’ve seen them all and the audience is always white with the exception of one or two people.
Now, part of the problem is that Mr. Wilson did not acknowledge Christianity as one of the savior’s of black people in the US. That got up the nose of one black theatrical friend that I have. He hated Wilson’s harping on African paganism that appears throughout the plays.
The other, I think, is that his plays were simply too difficult for the average theater goer. But then I never saw black audiences at black musicals, either.
Black people attend “black” theater - a semi-amateur tradition in which plays revolve around problems within the black community. No white person ever appears and they are never the focus of the problems. I actually have enjoyed the one or two that I’ve seen.
African American Culture
Oxymoron?
(ducking for cover)
The bankruptcy trustee conducted an audit and submitted a report to the court saying that the center is NON-VIABLE.
She recommended selling off the building and all assets.
That will never happen because it would be RAAAAAAACIST.
We’ll end up shoveling more hard-earned tax dollars into this hole.
That's a rare triple oxymoron.
The NYTimes is full of it...the problem is total mismanagement of the funding and marketing. The August Wilson Center SHOULD BE field trip central for the arts, and grow their following that way...instead it’s been “presented” as an artsy fartsy theatre experience...which it never came to be.
Going back to my school field trip idea, Wilson’s “Fences” could be presented for a school year. Kids could understand it (conflict between father/son, father when he loses his best friend due to a promotion). The place could see potential, and Wilson’s work (as it is so specific to the poor in the Rust Belt) could be seen in the area it was based in.
And FWIW, the building is really odd looking. It DOES look like a hammer :-/