THE PIANO LESSON
Bonus Material
The Piano Lesson
Interview with August Wilson about The Piano Lesson and his work on the teleplay for the 1995 Hallmark movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQBT_x2mblw
A short (26-minute) documentary on August Wilson in St. Paul, MN when Penumbra Theatre produced The Piano Lesson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qjbYGaHWTI
The 2022 Broadway Revival of The Piano Lesson
The revival starred Samuel L. Jackson as Doaker, John David Washington as Boy Willie, and Danielle Brooks as Berniece. It was directed by LaTonya Richardson Jackson (Samuel L. Jackson’s wife).
Trevor Noah interview with John David Washington, who played Boy Willie in the 2022 Broadway revival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB7rwkPVG90
Interviews with the cast of the 2022 Broadway revival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppQurwZCnpc
August Wilson
For an excellent overview of Wilson’s life and works, including a detailed timeline, see: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/august-wilson-the-ground-on-which-i-standaugust-wilsonbiography-and-career-timeline/3683/
See also The August Wilson African American Cultural Center, https://awaacc.org/about/about-august/
A 2016 project created a “green space” at 1839 Wylie Avenue, the home of Wilson’s character Aunt Esther, who appears in Gem of the Ocean and is referred to in other plays: 1839 Wylie Avenue - Grounded Strategies
August Wilson’s childhood home was restored and opened in 2022 as an arts center (this site also provides a good historical overview of Wilson and the Hill District): August Wilson House
Patti Hartigan’s 2023 biography of August Wilson, August Wilson: A Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2023), although not authorized by the August Wilson estate, nevertheless contains extensive information, some of which is based on Hartigan’s interviews with Wilson over many years.
Blues Music and August Wilson
For a good summary of the influence of blues music on August Wilson and his music, see: https://playbill.com/article/august-wilson-and-the-power-of-blues-com-100695
For an interview with Kathryn Bostic, who wrote the score for many of Wilson’s plays, see: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/august-wilson-the-ground-on-whichi-stand/3706/#:~:text=KB:%20Blues%20music%20informed%20his,seamlessness%20between%20score%20and%20text.
For an outstanding documentary on the efforts of several young white men to find forgotten Blues singers during the summer of 1968 (including Skip James, whose lyrics Wilson includes as an epithet at the beginning of The Piano Lesson), see the 2016 documentary Two Trains Runnin’, produced and narrated by Common: https://www.imdbcom/video/vi1364375065/ref_=vp_rv_ap_0
CONTENT WARNING: The documentary above ^^ contains disturbing video and still imagery of racist speeches and attacks in the deep South during the 1950’s and 1960’s.
The Great Migration
To learn more about the Great Migration, see Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson’s 2010 book The Warmth of Other Suns. (In July 2024, The New York Timespublished their list of the 100 best books of the 21st century so far. Wilkerson’s book came in at number 2.)
For a succinct and powerful history of the legacy of racism, including Jim Crow and the Great Migration, see Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent in the affirmative action case Students For Fair Admissions, Inc. vs. President and Fellows of Harvard College, June 29, 2023.
The groundbreaking 1991 movie Daughters of the Dust (which was the first movie directed by a Black woman, Julie Dash, to be distributed theatrically), set in 1902, tells the story of three generations of Gullah women as some prepare to leave St. Helena’s Island (off the coast of South Carolina) and head North in search of better opportunities. Beyonce’s 2016 visual album Lemonade pays homage to this movie, which led to its re-release later that year, twenty-five years after its initial release.