August Wilson's journey began at 1727 Bedford Ave. in the Hill District, where he was born in 1945, then took him into theaters all over the nation. The prize-winning vehicle was his 10-play Pittsburgh Cycle, each play set in a different decade of the 20th century. Now the journey completes its full circle with the staging of the cycle's final play, "Radio Golf," opening for previews tonight at the Pittsburgh Public Theater.

Completed as Wilson was dying of liver cancer in 2005, it was his final work, but, as his '90s play, it also completes the century. "The Final Chapter" say the Public Theater ads. "Full Circle" said the ads at Atlanta's Alliance Theater, which the Public joins in the select company of theaters that have completed the cycle.

Timing is pretty nearly everything, in theater as in life. So it's fitting that "Radio Golf" opens in the city that inspired it on Oct. 2, the very date Wilson died in 2005. Along the way it had a short but well-regarded 2007 run on Broadway. Now, in Pittsburgh, it is even more pertinent than when Wilson wrote it.

"Radio Golf" is set in 1997, which in Pittsburgh terms is barely yesterday, and features Harmond Wilks, Wilson's first hero from the black middle class. Wilks is the grandson of Caesar, the aggressive entrepreneur of "Gem of the Ocean." He's grown up in affluence with an Ivy League education. Even while launching a Hill redevelopment scheme, this confident, charismatic leader is planning to become the city's first African-American mayor.

But there's been shady dealing along the way, threatening the redevelopment. A community protest is brewing like that which once stopped Hill redevelopment at Freedom Corner. And there's more hidden history to uncover as the play turns into a struggle between commerce and the heritage of the spirit.

All that's missing is a battle over a new casino or arena. But "Radio Golf" certainly sounds as though it were written in the present moment, with a black candidate running for president and political turbulence over development on the Hill, still trying to dig out from decades of abuse and neglect.

There has always been a close connection between Wilson's plays and the city where he set all but one of the 10. Except for a brief stint in the Army, he lived here until he was 33. Thereafter, from his homes in St. Paul and Seattle and his theater homes around the country, he regularly returned to dip the ladle of his art into the stew of personal memory and the rich storytelling of Hill elders. After years of soaking up their tales, Wilson became that same elder par excellence.

The first mature Wilson plays staged in Pittsburgh were "Jitney," at the small Allegheny Repertory Theatre in 1982, and "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," at Kuntu Rep in 1987. Wilson became a national name in 1984, when "Ma Rainey" hit Broadway. Under Bill Gardner, the Public was slow to join the Wilson bandwagon, but when it did, it did so wholeheartedly, staging both "Fences" and "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" in 1989.

Thereafter, the Public eagerly staged all the plays, and under Eddie Gilbert it had the honor of hosting the premieres of the re-written "Jitney" in 1996 and of "King Hedley II," written specifically to open the new O'Reilly Theater in 1999.

Current Public chief Ted Pappas says he feels "a sense of mission" in the cast as the Public completes its tour of the Pittsburgh Cycle. "They're very serious about it," he says; they have a sense of "coming to the source. They know this theater opened with 'King Hedley,' in this same rehearsal hall. It's like how an actor feels doing Shakespeare in Stratford, England."

As he talked about Wilson at the Public, Pappas teared up. "We're very sad this is his last play," he said, "and opening coincidentally on the anniversary of his death." He spoke of the commitment to Wilson by his predecessors: "I've never felt more connected to the history of this company."

About the play's significance, Pappas says, "so much of American drama is about family, the better ones about family and more -- and this one's about family and lots more."

Pappas says he's also "happy to open the season with a real good American play." He talks about "Radio Golf's" contemporary relevance, calling it "prophetic," and about the ways it ties in to the cycle's previous nine plays, especially to "Gem of the Ocean," which the Public staged in 2006. Discovery of those connections is key to the unrolling of the plot.

Directing is Ron OJ Parson, who this summer became the first African American to direct at Ontario's Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Previously, the Chicagoan was here to direct Mark Southers' "Hoodwinked" at Pittsburgh Playwrights, and he both directed and acted in the 2005 "August in April" program of excerpts.

Playing Harmond is Morocco Omari, with his slick partner, golf addict Roosevelt Hicks, played by E. Milton Wheeler. Tyla Abercrumbie returns to Pittsburgh to play Harmond's ambitious, capable wife, Mame, who wants to leave the Hill in their dust. These three then run up against the history of the Hill, embodied in Alfred H. Wilson's Old Joe and Montae Russell's Sterling. The latter is one of the very few Wilson characters who carry over from one play to another: we met Sterling in "Two Trains Running," set in 1969.

Pappas says he is eager that "Radio Golf" be "viewed as a play in itself, complete," insisting you don't need to know more of the cycle to understand it. "We do it as its own work of art, not as a piece of something." That's one reason he placed it at the beginning of the season, "as No. 1, to launch a season."

That said, "there's no audience in the world that will understand the play better than the Public Theater audience, with all the other Wilson plays having been here over 20 years, and with all this one's local references."

It also fits nicely into Pittsburgh's birthday year, pairing with the recent revival of "The Chief" as the Public's celebration of Pittsburgh 250. But mainly, it brings August Wilson home, gloriously alive and kicking.