August Wilson’s “Radio Golf” explores race, class and gentrification on the Hill

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Image Credit: Instagram/@augustwilsonhouse/

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Across the pavement of Bedford Avenue in the Hill District, two structures stare at one another, as if their facades want to speak about the history they’ve weathered.

The August Wilson House sits on one side. Recently restored, the building was the childhood home of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright born in the Hill District in 1945. On the other stand Bedford Hill apartments, a mixed-income residence constructed in the early 2000s to replace “slum and blight,” according to an Urban Redevelopment Authority [URA] statement. Fourteen residents refused to sell their homes to make way for the new housing.

Beginning Aug. 17, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company gives voice to the century of conflicted history residing within those structures in its staging of August Wilson’s final drama, “Radio Golf.”

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