The Piano LessonNOW A NETFLIX FILM STARRING SAMUEL L. JACKSON! Winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, this modern American classic is about family, and the legacy of slavery in America. August Wilson has already given the American theater such spell-binding plays about the black experience in 20th-century America as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fences. In his second Pulitzer Prize-winner, The Piano Lesson, Wilson has fashioned perhaps his most haunting and dramatic work. At the heart of the play stands the ornately carved upright piano which, as the Charles family's prized, hard-won possession, has been gathering dust in the parlor of Berniece Charles's Pittsburgh home. When Boy Willie, Berniece's exuberant brother, bursts into her life with his dream of buying the same Mississippi land that his family had worked as slaves, he plans to sell their antique piano for the hard cash he needs to stake his future. But Berniece refuses to sell, clinging to the piano as a reminder of the history that is their family legacy. This dilemma is the real "piano lesson," reminding us that blacks are often deprived both of the symbols of their past and of opportunity in the present. |
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Common terms and phrases
ain't gonna sell ain't never ain't thinking alright August Wilson AVERY believe Berniece ain't gonna Berniece say Berniece's Berta Bible bless the house BOY WILLIE LYMON Boy Willie say Boy Willie's Carl Gordon Cleotha Crawley daddy DOAKER enters Doaker say door DRAMA DESK AWARD drink Eugene O'Neill Theatre Everyday Sunday everything five dollars give go back Go on back gonna go gonna take GRACE heard hundred leave Lloyd Richards look Lord Lou Myers marry nigger Nolander oh-ah Papa Boy Charles Parchman picture show preacher railroad real nice Rocky Carroll sack of money sell that piano sell them watermelons sheriff sleep Stage Manager stairs Starletta DuPois stay Stovall suit Sutter Sutter's ghost Sutter's land talking tell thing told Tommy Hollis truck trying upstairs waiting walk wanna WILLIE and LYMON WILLIE LYMON BERNIECE WINING BOY woman women Yale Repertory Theatre Yeah Yellow Dog