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THE PIANO LESSON to Hit Broadway and the Big Screen Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Danielle Brooks, and John David Washington

The Piano Lesson is the fourth play in August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle and received the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

By: Mar. 04, 2021
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THE PIANO LESSON to Hit Broadway and the Big Screen Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Danielle Brooks, and John David Washington  Image

Samuel L. Jackson, Danielle Brooks, and John David Washington are set to star in a Broadway revival of August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Piano Lesson in 2022. The production will be directed by LaTanya Richard Jackson.

Following its Broadway run, the same cast will star in its film adaptation, making it the third of Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle plays be adapted as a movie, following Fences (2016) and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020).

The Piano Lesson is set in 1936 Pittsburgh and follows the lives of the Charles family as they deal with themes of family legacy and more, in deciding what to do with an heirloom, the family piano.

The play was first staged in 1986 at the National Playwrights Conference. It was then staged in 1988 at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston, and then opened on Broadway in 1990. The production starred Carl Gordon, Charles S. Dutton, Rocky Carroll, S. Epatha Merkerson and more. The 1990 production won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. It won the Peabody Award in 1995.

The TV adaptation of The Piano lesson was nominated for the 1995 Emmy Award for Outstanding Made for Television Movie and the 1996 Emmy Award Outstanding Television Movie or Mini-Series.

The Piano Lesson was revived Off-Broadway in 2013 and starred Roslyn Ruff, Brandon J. Dirden, Chuck Cooper, and more. It won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival, as well as Outstanding Lead Actress, Outstanding Featured Actor, and Outstanding Director.







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