All 10 plays of ‘The August Wilson Century Cycle’ to be available in boxed set due out next week for $200

NEW YORK – It’s called simply “The August Wilson Century Cycle” – 10 plays celebrating the black experience in 20th-century America – one for each decade.\nAnd now Wilson’s masterworks are available in one place: a 10-volume, hardcover, boxed set, to be published Oct. 1 by Theatre Communications Group at a special introductory price of $200. Each play, from “Gem of the Ocean,” which takes place in 1904, to ‘“Radio Golf,” set in 1997, will also be \navailable separately.\nIntroductions to each of the plays were written by artists who knew Wilson’s dramas well, from novelist Toni Morrison, who champions “The Piano Lesson,” to playwright Tony Kushner, who extols “Seven Guitars,” to actor Laurence Fishburne, who starred on Broadway in “Two Trains Running.”\nWilson, who died of liver cancer in 2005 at the age of 60, set most of his plays in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. The neighborhood, as well as a lengthy parade of indelible characters, come alive in these works.