August Wilson & His American Cycle-The First Five: 1904-1957 (OOL)
Osher Online | Registration opens Sunday, August 16, 2026 2:00 PM
August Wilson was the first African American playwright to have a Broadway theater bear his name, a fitting tribute to a dramatist who brought African American culture and lived experience to the stage. In this course, we will read, watch, and examine the first five plays in Wilson’s American Cycle, a tenplay series representing each decade of the African American culture’s 20th century.
We will explore Wilson’s life and the influences behind his work while focusing on Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and Seven Guitars, tracing his powerful interpretation, celebration, and preservation of African American culture.
This programs meets on Wednesdays, 10/7/26 through 11/11/26 at 4:00 pm
Each live session is 90 minutes
Wednesday, October 7
Wednesday, October 14
Wednesday, October 21
Wednesday, October 28
Wednesday, November 4
Wednesday, November 11
As this class is delivered by the National Resource Center for OLLIs (NRC) at Northwestern University, you will receive a welcome email from osheronline@northwestern.edu. The email will include your credentials (username & password) as well as a hyperlink to the Osher Online Website through which you will access your course website.
Please save the link once you receive it. Multi-session courses will use this same link each week.
Ladrica Menson-Furr
Ladrica Menson-Furr, PhD, is assistant dean of undergraduate programs and associate professor of African American literature. Menson-Furr is the author of August Wilson’s Fences and August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and has published on Zora Neale Hurston and Pearl Cleage. She has led academic programs in African American studies and served as a Provost’s Fellow and a Tennessee Board of Regents’ Maxine Smith Fellow.