( ENSPIRE Entertainment ) Wilson’s Piano Lesson has Become the Most Earned Play in History
ENSPIRE Contributor: Jacara Watkins
Producers Brian Anthony Moreland, Sonia Friedman, Tom Kirdahy, Kandi Burruss, and Todd Tucker reported that Broadway’s greatest play August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson” has become the most-grossing Wilson play on Broadway in history. Because of increased demand, the production has extended through January 29, 2023, remaining to be one of the highest earning revivals of a play on Broadcast. LaTanya Richardson Jackson, a Tony Award® nominee is set to direct The Piano Lesson. Jackson is making her Broadway directorial debut and history by becoming the first woman to direct an August Wilson play on Broadway.
Starring Samuel L. Jackson as Doaker Charles, John David Washington as Boy Willie, and Danielle Brooks as Berniece. The current cast also features Michael Potts as Wining Boy, Ray Fisher as Lymon, Trai Byers as Avery (through January 15), Charles Browning as Avery (beginning January 17), April Matthis as Grace, and Nadia Daniel and Jurnee Swan as Maretha at alternating performances.
The Piano Lesson is set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in 1936. A brother and sister are locked in a war over the fate of a family heirloom: a piano carved with the faces of their ancestors. The Piano Lesson wrote Frank Rich in The New York Times, “has its spacious poetry, its sharp angle on a nation’s history, its metaphorical idea of drama and its palpable ghosts that roar right through the upstairs window of the household where the action unfolds. Like other Wilson plays, The Piano Lesson seems to sing even when it is talking.”
The Piano Lesson first premiered at the Yale Repertory Theatre in 1987, starring then-39-year-old Samuel L. Jackson as Boy Willie. Besides winning the Pulitzer Prize for drama then years later won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, the Peabody Award, and was nominated for the 1990 Tony Award for Best Play.
Tickets for all performances are now on sale at the Ethel Barrymore TheatreBox Office, on the show’s official website PianoLessonPlay.com or via Telecharge.com.
Related Articles: The Piano Lesson Electrifies Broadway for 17 Weeks Only, Fans Demand “Aint No Mo’” Continues Showing On Broadway
