Following a decorated Broadway revival in 2022, August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Piano Lesson” is getting the feature film treatment this fall at Netflix — and the streamer debuted its first trailer early Wednesday.
From director Malcolm Washington and starring John David Washington (both sons of Denzel Washington, who’s producing), the project costars Samuel L. Jackson (who was Tony-nominated for his turn in the 2022 stage production), Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu, Skylar Aleece Smith, Jerrika Hinton, Gail Bean, Danielle Deadwyler and Corey Hawkins.
Malcolm Washington cowrote the script with Virgil Williams (Netflix’s “Mudbound”).
Watch the trailer below:
“A battle is brewing in the Charles Household. At the center stands a prized heirloom piano tearing two siblings apart,” reads the streamer’s official synopsis of the project. “On one side, a brother (John David Washington) plans to build the family fortune by selling it. On the other, a sister (Danielle Deadwyler) will go to any lengths to hold onto the sole vestige of the family’s heritage. Their uncle (Samuel L. Jackson) tries to mediate, but even he can’t hold back the ghosts of the past. Adapted from August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork, ‘The Piano Lesson’ explores the intergenerational dynamics of identity, resilience and transcendence — revealing startling truths about how we perceive the past and who gets to define our legacy.”
Of the project, Washington said in his director’s statement, shared with TheWrap, that “our first mandate was to honor and uphold the legacy of August Wilson; imbue his spirit into the work. I tried to open myself up to him and learn as much as I could … May this work be an offering to the ancestors, a humble act of gratitude and tribute to them, and in honoring them, I honor the spirit of August Wilson and the legacy he left behind for all of us.”
“The Piano Lesson” is co-produced between Denzel Washington and Todd Black. Jennifer Roth, Constanza Romero Wilson and Katia Washington are attached as executive producers. Michael Gioulakis served as director of photography, David J. Bomba as production designer, Leslie Jones as editor, Francine Jamison-Tanchuck as costume designer and Alexandre Desplat as composer.
The feature film adaptation will premiere in select theaters nationwide on Nov. 8 before streaming on Netflix Nov. 22.
