August Wilson's The Piano Lesson

It is 1936, and Boy Willie arrives in Pittsburgh from the South in a battered truck loaded with watermelons to sell. He has an opportunity to buy some land down home, but he has to come up with the money right quick. He wants to sell a piano that has great importance to his family, but he shares ownership with his sister Berniece, and the piano sits in her living room. Berniece has already rejected several offers, because the antique piano is covered with beautiful carvings detailing the family’s rise from slavery. Boy Willie argues that the past is past, but Berniece proves to be more formidable than he anticipated.

After premiering at the Yale Repertory Theatre in November 1987, August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson opened on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre on April 16, 1990. Directed by Lloyd Richards, the production featured S. Epatha Merkerson, Carl Gordon and Charles S. Dutton. The play returned to Broadway in a 2022 revival directed by LaTanya Richardson Jackson, starring Danielle Brooks, Samuel L. Jackson and John David Washington.