A few days later, on September 2, Jujamcyn Theaters officially announced the renaming of the Virginia Theatre as the August Wilson Theatre. The new marquee, with the writer’s signature in bright neon, was set to be unveiled at a ceremony on October 17. Wilson would be the first African American with a Broadway theater bearing his name. It wasn’t clear if Wilson would last long enough to see it happen, but the significance was not lost on some copy editors, who picked up the story under the headline “The Great White Way No More.”
