Signature: What was your first encounter with
August Wilson’s work?
CR: Ruben, you mentioned sneaking into the theatre.
RSH: Yeah, my first time – I had come to New York in ‘83
and I had heard about this man named August Wilson and
this wonderful play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. So, unable
to afford a proper ticket, I found my way into the theatre
somehow at intermission. And all of a sudden the lights
came on and I saw these people that looked like people I
knew. Then all of a sudden they started talking, and they
spoke like them. And then they told stories and the stories
were the stories I’d heard. I said, “This is my family. And
whoever did this, I need to be a part of it.” And maybe ten,
twelve years later I auditioned for Two Trains Running. They
went another way, but they remembered me and called
me in for Seven Guitars. So that was my first encounter.
above: Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Constanza Romero, and David Gallo, 2013.
below: Tommy Hollis, Keith David, Roger Robinson, and Ruben Santiago-Hudson
in the Broadway production of Seven Guitars, 1996.
Signature: What is it that keeps you working on
August’s plays?
These were people who I had loved and cherished and all
DG: Other than the fact that it’s the greatest experience
of a sudden they were speaking in public.
that a person could possibly have as a designer?
CR: I was a third-year Drama School student at Yale,
this was in 1987. I was assigned to design the costumes
You’re working on something greater, something that
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