Few props have played as pivotal a role in a theatrical production as the humble upright in August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson.”
The family heirloom is at the heart of the conflict between Boy Willie, who wants to sell the piano to buy land to grow cotton on, and Berniece, his sister, who doesn’t, not for any reason or price. In one scene, their uncle Doaker describes how the piano was traded for “one and a half” of his relatives — his father, a boy of 9, and his grandmother — and how his grandfather, Papa Boy Willie, came to carve scenes from their family history on its wooden sides.
Wilson makes it clear in his production notes that this is to be some piano. “The carvings are rendered with a grace and power of invention,” he writes, “that lifts them out of the realm of craftsmanship and into the realm of art.”
Since the Pulitzer Prize-winning play’s premiere in 1987, a series of incredibly skilled artists, prop makers and set designers have done just that. Their handiwork has shared the stage with actors including Charles S. Dutton and Danielle Brooks, and Alfre Woodard and Samuel L. Jackson. The pianos have been displayed in various venues, including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington and the August Wilson African American Cultural Center in Pittsburgh, and featured in “making of” shorts and articles.
Fans of the play can see the latest incarnation in the Malcolm Washington-directed feature “The Piano Lesson,” streaming on Netflix. The film stars John David Washington (he and Malcolm are brothers) as Boy Willie, Danielle Deadwyler as Berniece, Samuel L. Jackson as Doaker — and, as with all of the productions before it, one lovingly-crafted piano.
Yale Repertory Theater (1987)
For the play’s world premiere at the Yale Rep, the set designer E. David Cosier Jr. modified an old upright player piano that his crew found in a nearby bar. Later, intricate portraits were carved on basswood, poplar and oak panels and applied to the side and front panel of a Yamaha Disklavier. Cosier’s piano was there for the show’s Broadway premiere at the Walter Kerr — as well as in productions of the play staged from the West Coast to the Kennedy Center in Washington.
For a time, the piano found a home in the living room of Wilson and his wife, Constanza Romero, the Tony-nominated costume designer who met the playwright during the Yale Rep production; their daughter, Azula, took lessons on it. In 2011, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture came calling, wondering if they might have the piano for their collection. Romero agreed — but only as a loan. “The reason I gave them was the same reason as in the play,” Romero said. “It’s a very important heirloom, and it belongs to our daughter.” Since the museum’s opening in 2016, the piano has held a place of pride in “Taking the Stage,” the museum’s performing arts section.
Hallmark Hall of Fame (1995)
A made-for-TV movie version of “The Piano Lesson” boasted a star-filled cast including Charles S. Dutton as Boy Willie, Alfre Woodard as Berniece and Carl Gordon as Doaker. The film earned nine Emmy nominations, including one for Diana Stoughton, the film’s set decorator. A “making of” documentary recounted how a “state-of-the-art computer system” was installed inside the piano “to create a sophisticated 20th-century version of the player piano.” Operated by remote control, the piano plays by itself in the film’s opening scenes.
Signature Theater (2012)
The celebrated Yonkers-based sculptor Vinnie Bagwell draws from African American history and life to create monumental art pieces, like bronze sculptures of Ella Fitzgerald and Frederick Douglass, and scenes that pay tribute to the Underground Railroad and the Civil Rights Movement. In the summer of 2012, the actor and playwright Ruben Santiago-Hudson tasked her with creating the piano for the show’s Off Broadway revival.
Bagwell selected an upright from a piano warehouse on Long Island and went to work, mixing Western and African influences, just as the play’s original carver might have: The front panel features an African mask, a banjo-playing child and a seashell. (“Enslaved Africans believed that shells had the power to take their spirits home,” Bagwell said in a phone interview.) One family portrait is encircled by shackles, another by a coiled whip.
The piano currently resides in Bagwell’s home in Yonkers. Like Berniece, Bagwell did not want to part with it. “At first, Ruben and the Signature were acting like they didn’t want to give me back the piano,” she said. In the end, she got it, and intends to hold onto it. “I’m Papa Boy Willie,” she said, referring to the carver in the play. “It’s gonna stay in my family. I’ll make pictures of it to share, but it’s not leaving my house.”
Ethel Barrymore Theater (2022)
For the Broadway revival, the Tony-winning set designer Beowulf Boritt turned to an associate, Romello Huins, to help him create the all-important prop. Huins was 23. LaTanya Richardson Jackson, the play’s director, and her husband, Samuel L. Jackson, who played Doaker, told Boritt about a Makonde Tree of Life sculpture they had in their home. Carved out of a single block of ebony, the African sculpture features interlocking human figures that represent the interconnectedness of family and culture. Maybe Huins could use that for inspiration?
Huins did, creating a stunning piece of art unlike any of the previous incarnations. Carving the designs in wood would have taken more time than the production had, so Huins’s renderings were taken off site to the New Jersey-based studio BB Props, who sculpted the piano using a 3-D printing process. After the play’s Broadway run, the piano was donated to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. “I remember LaTanya saying early on, ‘If this is good, it might go somewhere,’” Huins said. “Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined she was talking about the Smithsonian.”
Netflix (2024)
The production designer David J. Bomba (“Walk the Line”) created two pianos for Malcolm Washington’s film: a working piano that actually played, and a more utilitarian model for scenes where it had to be loaded in the back of a wagon, say, or pushed down a hallway. The figures on the piano were sculpted in clay and modeled on a variety of people, including the actress Charity Jordan, who plays Mama Berniece, the woman who is traded for the piano, and the director’s grandparents and great-grandparents. So much care was taken creating the film’s central prop that the filmmakers had to shoot around it during the film’s early days, while last-minute tweaks were made on the figures and facial expressions. “We never had all the pieces together until literally minutes before we shot it,” Bomba said.
The piano was displayed on the red carpet at the film’s Hollywood premiere at the Egyptian Theater, where attendees were able to see the prop up close. Would Bomba have approached the project differently if he were designing the piano for the stage, where the nearest audience member is yards away, rather than for a film, where close-ups can reveal every detail? “I would have approached it the same way,” he said. “Of course, you want to make the play real for the viewers. But I would have made it similarly detailed for a play, because I really design for the actors.”
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