Oscar-winner Samuel L. Jackson and John David Washington will star in the feature film adaptation of August Wilson’s play “The Piano Lesson” at Netflix.
Set in 1936 Pittsburgh during the aftermath of the Great Depression, the story follows the lives of the Charles family, a household led by Doaker Charles (Jackson), and an heirloom, the family piano, decorated with designs carved by an enslaved ancestor. Washington plays Doaker’s nephew, a role Jackson originated in the 1987 stage production.
The pair are reprising their roles from the recent highly successful Broadway revival which ran at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. It became the highest-grossing revival of a play on Broadway and the highest grossing Wilson production on Broadway.
Ray Fisher (“Zack Snyder’s Justice League”), Danielle Deadwyler (“Till”), Michael Potts (“Rustin”) and Corey Hawkins (“The Last Voyage of the Demeter”) co-star in the film.
Malcolm Washington directs from a screenplay he adapted with Virgil Williams. Denzel Washington and Todd Black produce.
The play one of the ten in Wilson’s “American Century Cycle” with two others – “Fences” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” – adapted for the screen in recent years by the same producing duo of Denzel Washington and Todd Black.
Source: Variety
