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Benjamin Mordecai, who was associate dean and chairman of the Yale School of Drama's department of theatre management, as well as a former managing director of Yale Repertory Theatre and founder/producing director of Indiana Repertory Theatre, was the only person to have worked on all the plays in August Wilson's 10-play cycle. Mordecai brought five Wilson works (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Fences, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson and Two Trains Running,) to Broadway. In partnership with Wilson, Mordecai subsequently founded the production company Sageworks, dedicated to producing the recent plays in the cycle. Mordecai also produced Tony Kushner's Angels in America, Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, Robert Schenkkan's The Kentucky Cycle and David Henry Hwang's Golden Child.
Benjamin Mordecai and I had planned to sail down the Nile River to celebrate our 60th birthdays. The gods, irascible giants, had other plans. They stormed through the house breaking the...