ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) - On October 2, 2005, profoundly impactful playwright, August Wilson, died.

August Wilson is the man responsible for hit movies like “Fences,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “The Piano Lesson.”

Those titles all started as plays in Wilson’s “The Pittsburgh Cycle.”

The Pittsburgh Cycle, also called “The Century Cycle,” is a series of 10 plays that document the Black experience in the 20th century. Each play takes place in a different decade, beginning with “Gem of the Ocean” set in the 1900s and ending with “Radio Golf” set in the ’90s.

Probably the most popular of his works, though, is “Fences,” which is set in the 1950s, but it’s still produced often today. Theatre Albany even put on a production of the show earlier this year.

|READ MORE: Tony Award winning play comes to Theatre Albany|

The show was adapted into a movie starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis in 2016.

Despite his death in 2005, Wilson’s legacy will continue to live on with these extraordinary plays for centuries to come.

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