Photos: August Wilson's THE PIANO LESSON At A Noise Within This Weekend

Currently in previews, “The Piano Lesson” — the fourth play in Wilson’s extraordinary 10-play “American Century Cycle,” the second to win a Pulitzer Prize, and the fifth in A Noise Within’s commitment to stage them all — opens at A Noise Within this weekend. See photos from the production below. 

Gregg T. Daniel is once again at the helm, following on the heels of critically acclaimed A Noise Within productions of “Gem of the Ocean,” “Seven Guitars,” “Radio Golf” and “King Hedley II.”

Written in Wilson’s always enthralling prose, The Piano Lesson weaves together elements of history and spirituality to create a haunting story about reckoning with a complicated past. In 1936 post-Depression Pittsburgh, Berniece (Nija Okoro) finds herself pitted against her newly arrived brother, Boy Willie (Kai A. Ealy), who is determined to sell a family heirloom: a piano decorated with images of their African ancestors carved by their enslaved grandfather. To Berniece, the piano represents a family legacy that must be preserved. Boy Willie sees it as a means to letting go of the past in order to move forward. As friends and relatives (LeShay Tomlinson Boyce, Jernard Burks, Madison Keffer, Alex Morris, Gerald C. Rivers and Evan Lewis Smith) get caught up in the dispute, a dynamic, gripping portrait emerges of a family haunted by its history and wrestling with its future.

Performances of “The Piano Lesson” run through Nov. 10. For more information, go to www.anoisewithin.org.
 

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