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As He Dies Writing

August WilsonThe greatest living American Playwright and double Pulitzer Prize winning author August Wilson is dying.

August Wilson told the world Friday he has inoperable liver cancer.

He found out in June he was terminal. Doctors say he might live until October.

August isn’t dying lonely or alone.

He is leaving us by cursing that good night with pen in hand and parchment on his lap as he places the final touches on Radio Golf, the last play of his life.

What must it be like for August Wilson to know his ending while writing his future?

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Missing Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller died. He was 89. When I was in the M.F.A. Theatre program at Columbia University I was fortunate to meet Arthur Miller at a staged reading of a new Arthur Kopit play called Bone the Fish at the old Circle Rep “garage” theatre in the Village near Christopher Street. Kopit’s play was a semi-send up of David Mamet’s successful Speed the Plow Broadway play.

Kopit later changed the title to Road to Nirvana when the play had a full Circle Rep production later in the season. The staged reading starred Sigourney Weaver and it was directed by her husband, Jim Simpson.

I was working as Arthur Kopit’s assistant on the show and I was stationed in the back row of the theatre to take notes. A beautiful young woman came up and asked me to save her the last empty seat next to me. I did not want to commit to saving her seat because the theatre was packed and more people were streaming into the tiny space. Before I could answer her she winked, smiled and disappeared.

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