Fences (2016) & Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)
Denzel Washington's August Wilson adaptations brought the Century Cycle to millions — Viola Davis won an Oscar for Fences.
Layer IV
Back to Today
The curtain never really came down. Here's where these plays live now.
Breaking Bad & Mad Men
Walter White and Don Draper are Willy Loman's heirs: men who reinvent themselves to chase success and lose their families doing it.
Clybourne Park (2010)
Bruce Norris's Pulitzer-winning response to Raisin shows the same house 50 years apart — gentrification as the sequel to redlining.
“Stella!” everywhere
Brando's cry from Streetcar is quoted in The Simpsons, Seinfeld, and countless memes — Williams lives in pop's DNA.
The Crucible as metaphor
'Witch hunt' remains a go-to phrase in American politics, invoking Miller's allegory of fear and accusation.
Housing, debt & hustle culture
Rising home prices, gig work, and 'grind' influencers re-ask Hansberry and Miller's question: who gets the dream, and at what cost?
Talk Back
- 1.Which character from this unit would thrive on social media today — and which would be destroyed by it?
- 2.Is the American Dream still a shared myth, or has it splintered into many dreams?
- 3.Where do you see a 'fence' — in Wilson's sense — in your own community?