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The following speech was delivered by playwright August Wilson on June 26, 1996, at the 11 th biennial Theatre Communications Group national conference at New Jerseys Princeton University. This text represents the complete and definitive version of Wilson's address, as published by TCG in September 2001.
SOME TIME AGO I HAD AN OCCASION TO SPEAK TO A GROUP OF INTERNATIONAL playwrights. They had come from all over the world-from Colombia, Chile, from New Guinea, Poland, China, Nigeria, Italy, France, Great Britain. I began my remarks by welcoming them to my country. I didn't __J always think of it as my country, but since my ancestors have been here since the early 17th century, I thought it as good a beginning as any. So I say if there are any foreigners here in the audience, welcome to my country.
I wish to make it clear from the outset that I do not have a mandate to speak for anyone. There are many intelligent blacks working in the American theatre who speak in a loud and articulate voice. It would be the greatest of presumptions to say that I speak for them. I speak only for myself and those who may think as I do.
I have come here today to make a testimony, to talk about the ground on which I stand and all the many grounds on which I and my ancestors have toiled, and the ground of theatre on which my fellow artists and I have labored to bring forth its fruits, its daring and its sometimes lacerating, and often healing, truths.
The first and most obvious ground I am standing on is this platform that I have so graciously been given at the 11th biennial conference of the Theatre Communications Group. It is the Theatre Communications Group to which we owe much of our organization and communication, and I am grateful to them for entrusting me with the grave responsibility of sounding this keynote, and it is my hope to discharge my duties faithfully. I first attended the conference in 1984, and I recall John Hirsch's eloquent address on the "Other" and I mark it as a moment of enlightenment and import. And I am proud and thankful to stand here tonight in...