According to Deadline, Denzel Washington is planning to adapt August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle for HBO. While speaking at USC Thursday night, Washington told the crowd that he would produce and direct every installment in the cycle — a series of ten plays about the black experience in Pittsburgh in each decade of the 20th century — at a pace of one per year. The actor also revealed that he would star alongside Viola Davis in the HBO version of Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Fences; the pair won Tonys for starring in the play’s 2010 Broadway revival. Throughout his life, Wilson was adamant that any film version of Fences should be directed by a black filmmaker — as he said in 1990, “White directors are not qualified for the job. The job requires someone who shares the specifics of the culture of black Americans.”
