Chautauqua Theater Company Guest Actor Lance E. Nichols, playing the part of August Wilson, performs during a rehearsal of How I Learned What I Learned Friday in Bratton Theater.
SOPHIA ROOKSBERRY
Staff Writer
August Wilson’s American Century Cycle comprises 10 plays that document the Black experience throughout the 20th century, with one play representing each decade and all but one set in Pittsburgh. Chautauqua Theater Company’s Producing Artistic Director Jade King Carroll has either directed, assistant directed or dramaturged all of them, some more than once.
“I have a real career-long passion for the theatricality, the musicality, the lyricism, the events of the plays, the people and the history,” King Carroll said. “There’s always something larger than life that happens in an August Wilson play.”
For her most recent Wilson project, King Carroll directed what some argue is the eleventh play of the cycle. How I Learned What I Learned is Wilson’s autobiographical one-man memoir, which King Carroll directed in 2023 at Portland Stage Company in Maine and Le Petit Theatre in Louisiana. Completing a full summer season for CTC, King Carroll revived her iteration in Bratton Theater for a round of preview performances that began with a preview Friday and an opening performance Tuesday.
“The reason that we were able to produce two main stages this year is because I could bring this play in for much less, because it had already been produced,” King Carroll said. “… We really put up a world-class production on a dime because everybody involved thought it was really important that Chautauqua have a full season.”
At 2 and 6 p.m. today in Bratton Theater, Chautauquans will have an opportunity to experience How I Learned What I Learned and step into the autobiographical world of Wilson.
How I Learned What I Learned not only rounds out CTC’s Summer Season, but it is also the play with which King Carroll is introducing Wilson to the company, despite it being somewhat of an outlier among the playwright’s works.
“Most August Wilson plays are ensemble pieces,” King Carroll said. “… With this play, it’s him and the audience, so the ensemble is completed by the audience. The fourth wall is broken in a different way that doesn’t happen in any of the August Wilson … plays that are within the cycle.”
King Carroll said she is looking forward to Chautauquans experiencing the story and meeting the man behind some of the 20th century’s most impactful plays.
“This is a story that is needed right now,” King Carroll said. “It talks about how much we need the arts. It talks about the importance of African American culture. It talks about what it is to become a master storyteller by seeing it enacted, so I think it just becomes more and more relevant since the first time August did it in 2003, or the first time I did it in 2023.”
Not only does King Carroll believe Chautauquans will learn and benefit from the production, but she also personally enjoys working on a piece she has a long-standing connection to, one that honors Wilson as her former collaborator and colleague.
“I’ve been doing more new plays recently, but I’m still always pitching offenses,” King Carroll said. “Once we have some energy in our budget and we’re not working with budget constrictions, I would love to do a full August Wilson on Bratton … The worlds are just so profoundly truthful, theatrical and lyrical that I can’t think of a single artistic director that doesn’t have an August Wilson somewhere on a short list for their upcoming season.”
Chautauquans can experience How I Learned What I Learned now through
Sunday’s closing performance. Tickets are available for $65 either online or at the ticketing kiosk outside Bratton Theater.
“[How I Learned What I Learned] is an ode to theater,” King Carroll said. “It’s an ode to America, and I hope it creates a curiosity and a hunger for more August Wilson at Chautauqua Theater Company.”
