Wilson name gets a Broadway home

Broadway’s Virginia Theatre will be renamed after playwright August Wilson, who recently disclosed that he has terminal liver cancer.

“He’s a towering American playwright,” said Jack Viertel, creative director of the Jujamcyn Theaters, which owns the venue in New York. Jujamcyn has co-produced five of Wilson’s 10 plays about African Americans in the 20th century and will bring the final play in the series, “Radio Golf,” to Broadway in the spring of 2007. “Radio Golf” is currently playing at L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum.

“It was appropriate to do this while he could enjoy it,” Viertel said Friday. An Oct. 17 ceremony is scheduled, although Wilson will not attend. The playwright lives in Seattle.

Wilson will be the first African American whose name is attached to a Broadway theater.

-- Don Shirley