The Piano Lesson is a play by American
playwrightA playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works are usually written to be performed in front of a live audience by actors...
August WilsonAugust Wilson was an American playwright. His literary legacy is the ten play series, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama...
, the fourth in his series,
The Pittsburgh Cycle. The play premiered on 26 November 1987 at the
Yale Repertory TheatreYale Repertory Theatre at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded by Robert Brustein, dean of the Yale School of Drama in 1966, with the goal of facilitating a meaningful collaboration between theatre professionals and talented students...
and debuted on
BroadwayBroadway Theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, is the theatre associated with the 40 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York in Manhattan, New York City...
in 1990. The original Broadway cast featured
Charles S. DuttonCharles Stanley Dutton is an American actor and director.With a lengthy, divirse and award-winning career on stage, film and television, Dutton is perhaps best-known for staring in the television series Roc .-Career:...
, Carl Gordon,
Rocky CarrollRocky Carroll is an American actor, best known for his roles of Leon Vance in NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles.-Early life:...
, and
S. Epatha MerkersonS. Epatha Merkerson is an American Golden Globe-, Screen Actors Guild-, NAACP Image Award- and Emmy Award-winning actress. She has also received two Tony Award nominations. She is known for her roles as Reba the Mail Lady on Pee Wee's Playhouse in the 1980s, and as the no-nonsense supervisor, Lt...
. Wilson received the
New York Drama Critics Circle AwardThe New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 20 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area...
and his second
Pulitzer Prize for DramaThe Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than being the calendar...
for the work.
Characters
- Boy Willie
- Lymon
- Maretha
- Doaker
- Grace
- Avery
- Berniece
- Wining Boy
The play concerns a brother and a sister who argue about whether they should sell their family piano.
The Piano Lesson is a play by American
playwrightA playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works are usually written to be performed in front of a live audience by actors...
August WilsonAugust Wilson was an American playwright. His literary legacy is the ten play series, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama...
, the fourth in his series,
The Pittsburgh Cycle. The play premiered on 26 November 1987 at the
Yale Repertory TheatreYale Repertory Theatre at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded by Robert Brustein, dean of the Yale School of Drama in 1966, with the goal of facilitating a meaningful collaboration between theatre professionals and talented students...
and debuted on
BroadwayBroadway Theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, is the theatre associated with the 40 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York in Manhattan, New York City...
in 1990. The original Broadway cast featured
Charles S. DuttonCharles Stanley Dutton is an American actor and director.With a lengthy, divirse and award-winning career on stage, film and television, Dutton is perhaps best-known for staring in the television series Roc .-Career:...
, Carl Gordon,
Rocky CarrollRocky Carroll is an American actor, best known for his roles of Leon Vance in NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles.-Early life:...
, and
S. Epatha MerkersonS. Epatha Merkerson is an American Golden Globe-, Screen Actors Guild-, NAACP Image Award- and Emmy Award-winning actress. She has also received two Tony Award nominations. She is known for her roles as Reba the Mail Lady on Pee Wee's Playhouse in the 1980s, and as the no-nonsense supervisor, Lt...
. Wilson received the
New York Drama Critics Circle AwardThe New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 20 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area...
and his second
Pulitzer Prize for DramaThe Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than being the calendar...
for the work.
Plot synopsis
Characters
- Boy Willie
- Lymon
- Maretha
- Doaker
- Grace
- Avery
- Berniece
- Wining Boy
The play concerns a brother and a sister who argue about whether they should sell their family piano. Boy Willie, a sharecropper from the
SouthThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States...
, wants to sell his family's ancestral piano to buy land. His
Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaPittsburgh is a city in and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and the second largest city in the state. Its population was 334,563 at the 2000 census; by 2006, it was estimated to have fallen to 312,819. The population of the seven-county metropolitan area is...
sister Berniece insists on keeping it. The piano has the carved faces of their great-grandfather's wife and son, who were sold in exchange for the piano during the days of enslavement.
Productions
The play was adapted for a
teleplayA teleplay is a play written or adapted for television. The term surfaced during the 1950s with wide usage to distinguish a TV script from stage plays for the theater and screenplays written for films....
production in 1995 directed by
Lloyd RichardsLloyd George Richards was a Canadian-American theatre director, actor, and dean of the Yale School of Drama from 1979 to 1991, and Yale University professor emeritus.-Biography:...
with Charles S. Dutton as Boy Willie and
Alfre Woodard-Personal life:Woodard was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to African American parents: Constance, a homemaker, and Marion H. Woodard, an entrepreneur and interior designer. Woodard attended Bishop Kelley High School, a private Catholic school in Tulsa. She studied drama at Boston University, from where...
as Berniece.
Awards and nominations
Awards
- 1990 Drama Desk Award Outstanding New Play
- 1990 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play
- 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
- 1996 Peabody Award
Nominations
- 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
- 1990 Tony Award for Best Play
- 1995 Outstanding Made for Television Movie
- 1996 Outstanding Television Movie or Mini-Series
External links