Viola Davis, Denzel Washington reportedly collaborating on 'Fences' movie

PBS

August Wilson's "Fences" is set in the Hill District circa 1957.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Denzel Washington will direct Viola Davis in a movie version of August Wilson’s “Fences,” the Tony Award-winning actress told The New York Times.

Ms. Davis, the star of TV’s “How to Get Away With Murder,” won a Tony for her performance as Rose in the 2010 Broadway revival of “Fences,” set in the Hill District circa 1957 and a Pulitzer Prize winner for the late playwright.

“They are making ‘Fences,’ August Wilson’s play, into a feature that Denzel Washington is directing and I’m going to be in,” Ms. Davis told the Times.

Mr. Washington, the Oscar- and Tony-winning actor, co-starred with Ms. Davis as Troy Maxson, a role originated by James Earl Jones, in the Broadway production. Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company revived the play in its Downtown theater last year, with Kevin Brown as the disillusioned sanitation worker who never made it from the Negro Leagues to the majors.

According to Playbilll.com, a film version of “Fences” was discussed as early as 1990, but Mr.
Wilson “was famously adamant that the project could go forward only if it had a black director, as the original 1987 Broadway production had had in Lloyd Richards.”