August Wilson’s 10 Plays For HBO Over Next Decade

Denzel Washington was in Beverly Hills tonight for a Q&A and broke some serious news. In a sit-down with “The Notorious Ph.D.” Todd Boyd, the two-time Oscar winner said he has worked an arrangement with the estate of August Wilson to direct and exec produce all 10 of the Pulitzer-winning dramatist’s plays for HBO. Washington said the  estate to do one a year on the premium channel.

“I’m directing, producing — and acting in one (Fences) — and I’m executive producing the other nine,” he told Boyd and the crowd during “An Evening With Denzel Washington” at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. “I’m really excited about that — that [the estate] would put that in my hands and trust me,” Washington said tonight. “That’s good enough for me. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

He also said Viola Davis also will star in Fences. She and Washington starred on Broadway in a 2010 revival of the Pulitzer-winning show, and the production earned them Best Actor and Best Actress Tony Awards and also won for Best Revival of a Play. 

HBO’s reps could not be reached for comment.

Each of Wilson’s 10-play Pittsburgh Cycle aka the Century Cycle is set during a different decade of the 1900s and aims to describe the black experience.