In his second Pulitzer Prize-winner, The Piano Lesson, August Wilson fashions a most haunting and dramatic work. At the heart of the play stands the ornately carved upright piano that has been gathering dust in the parlor of Berniece Charles's Pittsburgh home. When Boy Willie, her exuberant brother, bursts into her life with his dream of buying the same Mississippi land that his family had worked as slaves, he plans to sell their antique piano for the hard cash he needs to stake his future. Berniece refuses to sell, clinging to the piano as a reminder of the history that is their family legacy.
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