African-American playwright and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. He dropped out of high school when a teacher falsely accused him of plagiarism, saying his work was too good for a black student. He then became a self-educated man, and was active in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and in 1968 formed the Black Horizons Theater Company in Pittsburgh. He then moved to Minneapolis, MN in 1978, and has been writing plays since then.

• Jitney. 1982
• Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. 1984
• Fences. 1985. winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize
• Joe Turner's Come and Gone. 1986
• The Piano Lesson. 1987. winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize
• Two Trains Running. 1990
• Seven Guitars. 1995
• King Hedley II. 1999