About the Play:

King Hedley II has become a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Male Monologues.

King Hedley II is a full-length drama by August Wilson. An ex-con in the Reagan years of excess tries to rebuild his life by selling stolen refrigerators and robbing the neighbourhood jeweller so he can buy a video store. But grand dreams for his wife and unborn child are threatened by a system that's not about to play by his rules. Many critics have hailed the work as a haunting and challenging tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.

King Hedley II is set in Pittsburgh's Hill District in 1985 when King Hedley is peddling stolen refrigerators in the feeble hope of making enough money to open a video store to make a better life for himself and wife Tonya. Hedley, a man whose self worth is built on self delusion, is scraping in the dirt of an urban backyard trying to plant seeds where nothing will grow. Getting, spending, killing and dying in a world where getting is hard and killing is commonplace are threads woven into this 1980's instalment in the author's renowned 10-play cycle chronicling the history of the African-American experience in each decade of the 20th century. Drawing on characters established in Seven Guitars, King Hedley II shows the shadows of the past reaching into the present as King seeks retribution for a lie perpetrated by his mother regarding the identity of his father.

King Hedley II premiered in 1999 at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre in Pittsburgh, Pensylvania, and played a number of other regional theaters, including Seattle, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington before it opened on Broadway at the Virginia Theatre in 2001. It was a Finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and been mounted by colleges and community theatres.

Cast: 2 female, 4 male

What people say:

"Grand [with] some of the finest monologues ever written for an American stage, speeches that build gritty, often brutal details into fiery patterns of insight.... You may feel the scorch of lightning." — New York Times

"Mesmerizing.... Full of powerful images that convey the darkly comic dialogue between hope and hopelessness in African American life." — New York Daily News

"Exhilarating.... Wilson has endowed his struggling souls with a metaphysical grandeur and a titanic vigor of language that is like no other dramatist's. He takes the idea of tragedy and the common man to Olympian heights ... [and] boldly tackles the big philosophical questions most contemporary playwrights shrink from. He articulates these questions with grounding, often witty detail and in an inner city vernacular that soars into both unabashed lyricism and earthy anecdote.... There is no denying the transporting, natural music of Hedley and phrases from it haunt the memory." — New York Times

"Wilson's melody here is the mournful sound of what might have been, a blues-tinged tale about a driven, almost demonic man. He's a petty thief named King who will stop at nothing for a better life… King Hedley is a big play, filled with big emotions and big speeches. These aria-like monologues are rich in humor, heartbreak and the astonishing details that go into creating real people. With his latest arrival on Broadway, Wilson only has the first and last decades of the 20th century to chronicle — it's been quite a journey. King Hedley will only add to that towering achievement." — Associated Press

"What makes Wilson America's greatest living playwright — aside from his gift for dialogue, which blends searing poetry with uncompromising realism — is the bracing humanism which he provides insight into the struggles and aspirations of all individuals." — USA Today

About the Playwright:

August Wilson (1945 – 2005) was an African-American playwright who depicted the human condition like no other playwright of his time. His legacy lives on through his crowning achievement: The Pittsburgh Cycle of 10 plays chronicling the African American experience, each set in a different decade of the 20th century. All of them are set in Pittsburgh's Hill District except for one, which is set in Chicago. The cycle is also known as his Century Cycle. Crafted over nearly 25 years, these works garnered August Wilson a myriad accolades, including eight New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards, a Tony Award and two Pulitzer Prizes.