Archibald Leyasmeyer and August Wilson
English Emeritus professor Archibald Leyasmeyer serves as a primary source for a new Minnesota History article about the late Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson (Fences, The Piano Lesson) and his relationship with the Minneapolis Playwrights' Center. Leyasmeyer was board president when Wilson, who had moved to St. Paul from Pittsburgh, received a Jerome fellowship at the Playwrights' Center for 1980-81; in the article, Leyasmeyer recalls this choice as "one of the greatest decisions of my life." That year, Wilson wrote Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.