August Wilson’s classic play “The Piano Lesson” will be getting another feature film adaptation, this time courtesy of Netflix.
The star-packed adaptation of the 1930s-set melodrama will feature Samuel Jackson and John David Washington with Ray Fisher, Danielle Deadwyler, Michael Potts and Corey Hawkins offering support. Produced by Todd Black and Denzel Washington, the film will be directed and co-written by Malcolm Washington, with Virgil Williams serving as the co-writer. Constanza Romero, Jennifer Roth and Katia Washington will serve as executive producers.
Set in Pittsburgh in the aftermath of the Great Depression, “The Piano Lesson” follows the lives of the Charles family in the Doaker Charles household and an heirloom, the family piano, which is decorated with designs carved by an enslaved ancestor. The Broadway revival, which starred Jackson and Washington, recently ended its run at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre after playing 27 previews and 124 regular performances. The production is the highest-grossing revival of a play on Broadway and the highest-grossing Wilson production ever on the Great White Way.
“The Piano Lesson,” penned in 1987, is part of Wilson’s ten-play “American Century Cycle” which includes “Fences” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” “Fences,” directed by and starring Denzel Washington, got the big-screen treatment in 2016, earning strong reviews, four Oscar nominations and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Viola Davis. The latter was an acclaimed 2020 Netflix offering, directed by George C. Wolfe and adapted for the screen by Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
Also produced by Washington, it featured Oscar-nominated star turns from Davis and Chadwick Boseman. The late Bosewick’s performance was so expected to win the 2021 Best Actor Oscar that the telecast’s producers, including Steven Soderbergh, planned it as the last award of the evening. It ended the evening on a whimper when a not-in-attendance Anthony Hopkins won for “The Father.”
Washington announced plans in 2015 to bring all 10 of Wilson’s “Century Cycle” plays, also sometimes called the “Pittsburgh Cycle,” to feature-film life for HBO. While that obviously has not panned out, he is 3 for 10 in terms of getting the material the polished cinematic treatment. It is clear that the legendary movie star views this as an important project in the third act of his momentous career. And with John David Washington starring and Malcolm Washington directing, it is also clear that the elder Washington sees this as a family affair.
The previous adaptation of “The Piano Lesson” aired as a TV movie on CBS in 1995. It starred Charles S. Dutton and Alfre Woodard and was produced under the Hallmark Hall of Fame banner.
