Learn a Lesson While You Post Your Own Thursday Headlines

 

Courtesy The Black Chronicle.

This week's Notable Opening Night is April 16, 1990, when The Piano Lesson opened at the Walter Kerr.

Playwright August Wilson and director Lloyd Richards celebrated their fourth Broadway collaboration in five-and-a-half years with The Piano Lesson, which was the first production to play the Ritz under its new name, the Walter Kerr (which still exists as of 2026). The Wilson and Richards team continued for two more productions at the Kerr, 1992's Two Trains Running and 1996's Seven Guitars. The last Wilson play to open on Broadway during his lifetime, 2004's Gem of the Ocean, also played at the Kerr.

I've never read or seen The Piano Lesson, which won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama after having also been nominated for the 1989 prize. I'll eventually rectify my cultural shortcoming, but in the meantime, here's an excerpt from an April 2001 John Lahr article in The New Yorker. It ran prior to the Broadway opening of Wilson's King Hedley II:

"The Piano Lesson —which involves a contest for ownership of a prized family piano between a sister, who wants to keep it as a symbol of her African-American heritage, and her brother, who wants to sell it to buy land on the plantation where their ancestors were slaves—had still not found a satisfactory ending after a year of touring. It finally got one when Richards suggested to Wilson that the battle between the brother and sister was missing a third party: the spirit of the white family who also had claims on the piano. 'August wrote a wonderful speech describing how the piano came into the family and how they had stolen it from this white family,' Richards says. 'That brought the piece together.'

When The Piano Lesson was made into a TV movie, in 1995, Wilson served as a producer, a shift in power that also augured a change in his relationship with Richards. At one meeting, a production designer, Patricia Van Ryker, who hadn’t read the original play—which states that the piano’s legs are 'carved in the manner of African sculpture,' to represent the characters’ African heritage—laid out her plans to decorate the piano with images of plantation life that fit within the time frame of the play. Wilson exploded. 'He was screaming,' Van Ryker recalls. ''How dare you do this! You’re insulting my relatives! My race!' It was like I’d thrown kerosene on him.' Richards recalls the moment as 'terrible,' and says, 'I don’t function dictatorially. I don’t give directives. I saw August in a position of power. I knew I couldn’t work for him.'

As Wilson grew in confidence, craft, and stature, it became increasingly difficult for him to play the protégé in the partnership. 'The two of them artistically began drifting apart, which was, I think, a natural thing,' (producer Benjamin) Mordecai says. 'The collaboration wasn’t happening at the level it had in earlier years.' As Wilson saw it, 'Lloyd slowed down,' but it’s just as true to say that Wilson grew up."

Benjamin Mordecai, who made his executive producing debut with The Piano Lesson, died on May 8, 2005. August Wilson died on Oct. 2, 2005. Lloyd Richards died on June 29, 2006. 

Despite the Pulitzer, the original Broadway production of The Piano Lesson went zero-for-five at the Tonys. Wilson and Richards each lost to playwright-director Frank Galati for The Grapes of Wrath, while Charles S. Dutton (as Boy Willie, who wants to sell the piano) lost as a lead actor to Robert Morse in Tru, S. Epatha Merkerson (as Berniece, who wants to keep the piano) lost as a featured actress to Margaret Tyzack for Lettice and Lovage, and Rocky Carroll (as Lymon, who becomes close to the siblings) lost as a featured actor to Charles Durning for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. A 2022 revival went zero-for-two at the Tonys, with the play losing to a revival of Topdog/Underdog and Samuel L. Jackson (who originated the role of Boy Willie back at the Yale Repertory Theatre and was now playing the father, Doaker Charles) losing as a featured actor to Brandon Uranowitz in Leopoldstadt.

Courtesy YouTube.

Other April 16 openings include:

Grind, which opened at the Mark Hellinger in 1985. Directed by Harold Prince with a score by Larry Grossman and Ellen Fitzhugh and a book by Fay Kanin, Grind was not a long-runner. Various troubled folks -- a traumatized IRA bomber (Timothy Nolen), an increasingly blind comedian (Stubby Kaye), a stripper who's looking for love (Leilani Jones), and the comedian who's determined to make the girl his own (Ben Vereen) -- all perform at a Chicago burlesque house in the 1930s. The 1984-85 Broadway season had only five new musicals (six if you count André De Shields' Haarlem Nocturne) and the above quartet from Grind repesented almost all of the musical performers who received above the title billing that year. Ultimately, there were no Tonys given for lead musical actors and actresses, Leilani scored as a featured actress, and Florence Klotz won her fourth of six Tonys (out of seven nominations) for costumes.

Courtesy YouTube.

The King and I, which was revived at the Vivian Beaumont in 2015. Four Tonys, including for the production itself, Kelli O'Hara's performance as Anna (her lone win to date after six nominations in a decade, five as a lead musical actress, followed by two more lead musical actress nominations since then), and for Ruthie Ann Miles' performance as Lady Thiang.

Courtesy YouTube.

Next week, we shall go sailing, sailing, ever westward on the sea, we shall go sailing, sailing, ever on go we ...