Set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in 1936, The Piano Lesson is the story of the Charles family as they battle their surroundings and each other over their shared legacy—an antique piano. The drama is the fourth play in August Wilson's epic Century Cycle.
What Is the Story of The Piano Lesson?
Set in 1936 in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, The Piano Lesson centers around the Charles family, who must decide what to do with an heirloom piano that has been in the family for generations. When Boy Willie returns home from a Mississippi prison with his friend Lymon and a truck full of watermelons, he’s ready to purchase the land where his ancestors worked as slaves—if only he can find the money to buy it. He has his eyes on selling that intricately carved piano, but his sister Berniece demands that it stay in the family, even though she doesn’t play it. As tension mounts, the ghost of Sutter, the man who once owned the Charles family as slaves, comes back to haunt them.
"[Brandon J.] Dirden, blunt, brusque, fast-talking, makes Boy Willie's verbal effusions a scrambling nonstop ride, perfectly balanced by [Roslyn] Ruff's steely, slow-burning determination."
The Village Voice
Michael Feingold
"The first-rate production has been directed with meticulous care and a fantastically musical ear by Ruben Santiago-Hudson."
Newsday
Linda Winer
"22 years after its Broadway debut, this deeply moving work about the lingering scars of slavery on a 1930s Pittsburgh family is getting a sterling revival."
The New York Post
Frank Scheck
"And perhaps best of all is Tony winner Chuck Cooper ('The Life') as Doaker's 'big recording star' brother Wining Boy. His bluesy drunken ode to his recently departed wife, Cleotha, is heartbreaking."
Entertainment Weekly
Melissa Rose Bernardo
"This immensely satisfying show, directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, an actor who has become an expert interpreter of Wilson’s work, brings a timely reminder of how consoling, how restorative, how emotionally sustaining great theater can be."
The New York Times
Charles Isherwood