Though it’s not part of August Wilson’s Century Cycle, his autobiographical “How I Learned What I Learned” still has quite the story to tell. And an award-winning Pittsburgh actor with direct ties to the Pittsburgh-born playwright will share it for one night only.
Pittsburgh actor Wali Jamal will perform the one-man, 90-minute show without intermission on Monday, Jan. 20, at 7 p.m. at the New Hazlett Theater on the North Side. Tickets for the Prime Stage Theatre production start at $10 at newhazletttheater.org.
In the 2003 play, Wilson’s 11th and final work, he shares stories of his life, recalling what it was like to grow up in the Hill District. Fittingly, Wilson performed the show himself in its debut just two years before he died from liver cancer.
For his part, Jamal believes his performance is enhanced by his ties to Wilson. He was named the Post-Gazette Performer of the Year in 2018 after performing the play for the national August Wilson Society in Pittsburgh and at the New Hazlett Theater. The actor, who claims to be the only individual to have worked on all 11 of Wilson’s plays, also had the chance to meet the playwright in person multiple times — the first of which made a big impact on his career.
“I got to do a play reading of one of his plays with him, reading one of the roles,” Jamal said. “That was amazing because I hadn’t even been in theater for a year — not even six months — and I’m sitting there at Mark Southers’ house, the artistic director of what is now Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre. We were doing this thing called the August Wilson reading roundtable.
“He was just out of this world, and and I'm sitting like right next to him, and I'm still not fully understanding who this guy is. You know, it's just insane.”
With his Century Cycle experience, Jamal has a special appreciation for “How I Learned What I Learned.”
“There are parts of the play that, when I do them, I know exactly how it fit into his other plays,” he said.
“There’s this one segment of ‘How I Learned What I Learned’ where he talks about applying for a job at a toy store. The guy hired him, but the guy all but called him a thief before he started working. That figured into his play, ‘King Hedley II,’ where the character of King Hedley II is pretty much relaying that story.”
Performing this solo play, as well as every other August Wilson work, has also taught Jamal valuable lessons about acting.
“I’ve learned that it never gets easy,” Jamal explained. “I’m in the middle of rehearsing my lines right now and I’m about to go back to rehearsing those lines because this is a 90-minute, one-person show with just me, and it never becomes a ‘piece of cake.’
“It is work and, if you don’t do the work, you’re going to stand there and stink up the place.”
But he said the work is worth it, especially when it’s for a Pittsburgh show with Prime Stage Theatre — a company he performed with during his “beginnings” in theater 25 years ago.
“I’m glad that I have this play in my bones for anyone, anywhere in the world who wants to see it and learn more about August,” Jamal said.
“This play — this one-man, 90-minute, one-person play — it really puts into perspective who he was, how he grew up to be who he became.”
First Published: January 16, 2025, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: January 17, 2025, 7:01 p.m.