In 1990, August Wilson and his wife, costume designer Constanza Romero, relocated to Seattle. After his death in 2005, the Seattle Repertory Theatre and the Seattle Center in which it is located, wanted to honor the playwright. In 2008, a pedestrian promenade that runs through the Seattle Center campus, from Warren Avenue to Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, was named August Wilson Way. A free-standing stone door frame with a red door and image of Wilson, playfully invites pedestrians to walk through.
A plaque in front of it shares lines from the play King Hedley II (1991):
The people wandering all over the place. They got lost. They don’t even know the
story of how they got from tit to tat. Aunt Ester know. But the path to her house is
all grown over with weeds, you can’t hardly find the door no more. The people
need to know that. The people need to know the story. See how they fit into it.
See what part they play. — Stool Pigeon, King Hedley II, by August Wilson
