The Piano Lesson is the fourth play in August Wilson's Pittsburgh cycle, and one of the most renowned. If the entire ten-play cycle can be seen as a living history lesson, then The Piano Lesson is the pop quiz, smashing together the legacies of various American eras and forcing them to duke it out for survival. It is, according to Clive Barnes of the New York Post, “the fourth, best, and most immediate in the series of plays exploring the Afro-American experience during this century.”
The Piano Lesson came to life through three years of extensive workshopping - a process which allowed Wilson to find the ending of the play naturally. "I didn't want to say what happened to the piano,...
