August Wilson: Seven Plays Running

1982: “Jitney” is finished, but never professionally produced.

April 1984: “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” premieres at Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven, Conn. Set in 1927 Chicago, the action takes place in a rundown recording studio, where the blues singer Ma Rainey and a group of musicians have come to work. Cast features Charles S. Dutton.

October 1984: “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” opens on Broadway.

April 1985: “Fences” premieres at Yale Rep. Features James Earl Jones as Troy Maxson, a former baseball great at odds with his son, in a story set in 1957.

April 1986: “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” premieres at Yale Rep. Set in a boardinghouse in 1911, the play centers on a man in search of his lost wife and daughter. Cast features Charles S. Dutton and Angela Bassett.

March 1987: “Fences” opens on Broadway. James Earl Jones continues.

November 1987: “The Piano Lesson” premieres at Yale Rep. In 1936, a brother and his sister battle over the fate of a carved piano whose designs are the stigmata of a painful family legacy.

March 1988: “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” opens on Broadway. Cast includes Delroy Lindo and Angela Bassett.

March 1990: “Two Trains Running” premieres at Yale Rep. Set in a diner in the 1960s, the play concerns the establishment’s regulars and others, shortly after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

April 1990: “The Piano Lesson” opens on Broadway. Cast includes Charles S. Dutton.

April 1992: “Two Trains Running” opens on Broadway. Cast includes Laurence Fishburne.

January 1995: “Seven Guitars” premieres, Goodman Theatre, Chicago.

February 1995: “Fences” airs on “Hallmark Hall of Fame,” CBS-TV.