August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean to Take Final Bow on February 6

August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean will play its final performance at the Walter Kerr Theatre on February 6. At the time it closes, the drama will have played 15 previews and 72 regular performances.

Gem of the Ocean is the ninth play in Wilson's 10-play cycle chronicling the African-American experience through each decade of the 1900s. Set in 1904, it becomes the first play chronologically in Wilson's odyssey through the 20th century.

Phylicia Rashad stars as Aunt Ester, a legendary community elder with astonishing powers. Set in Pittsburgh, Citizen Barlow arrives on the eve of Ester's 287th birthday, looking for guidance on how to build himself a better life. He soon starts off on a journey to find the mythic City of Bones, leading him to startling discoveries and setting him on a course of duty and redemption. On his path to shape the future, he inevitably learns the lessons of the past.

The show opened on Broadway to mixed to positive reviews on December 6 after this production, directed by Kenny Leon, had a tryout at the Huntington Theatre Company. In his Broadway.com Review, Eric Grode wrote: "It's easy to forget how good August Wilson is at shooting the breeze, something he does often in the first act of the intermittently dazzling but deeply flawed Gem of the Ocean… By the end, though, Gem--the earliest in the cycle chronologically, set in 1904 Pittsburgh--concerns itself less with chewing the fat and more with summoning the gods. This is, to put it mildly, an unwise decision. Wilson and director Kenny Leon end up scrambling to reconcile the characters' workaday concerns with the play's ungainly dip into magical realism, and the damage is irreparable."

In addition to Rashad, Gem of the Ocean stars Anthony Chisholm, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, LisaGay Hamilton, John Earl Jelks and Raynor Scheine.

The Manhattan Theatre Club production of Doubt is expected to be the next tenant at the Walter Kerr.