Production Stage Manager: Maureen F. Gibson

Stage Manager: Gwendolyn M. Gilliam

Casting: Meg Simon/Fran Kumin

The Yale Repertory Theatre production of The Piano Lesson opened on January 9, 1988, at the Huntington Theatre, Peter Altman, Producing Director, Michael Maso, Managing Director, in Boston, Massachusetts, with the following cast:

DOAKER: Carl Gordon

BOY WILLIE: Charles S. Dutton

LYMON: Rocky Carroll

BERNIECE: Starletta DuPois

MARETHA: Jaye Skinner

AVERY: Tommy Hollis

WINING BOY: Lou Myers

GRACE: Sharon Washington

Director: Lloyd Richards

Set Design: E. David Cozier, Jr.

Costume Design: Constanza Romero

Lighting Design: Christopher Akerlind

Musical Direction: Dwight Andrews

Sound Design: J. Scott Servheen

Stage Manager: Gwendolyn M. Gilliam

Casting: Meg Simon/Fran Kumin

The Piano Lesson opened on April 16, 1990, at the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway in New York City, with the following cast:

DOAKER: Carl Gordon

BOY WILLIE: Charles S. Dutton

LYMON: Rocky Carroll

BERNIECE: S. Epatha Merkerson

MARETHA: Apryl R. Foster

AVERY: Tommy Hollis

WINING BOY: Lou Myers

GRACE: Lisa Gay Hamilton

Director: Lloyd Richards

Set Design: E. David Cosier, Jr.

Costume Design: Constanza Romero

Lighting Design: Christopher Akerlind

Musical Direction: Dwight D. Andrews

Sound Design: G. Thomas Clark

Production Stage Manager: Karen Carpenter

Stage Manager: Russell Johnson

Casting Consultants: Meg Simon/Fran Cumin

The Setting

The action of the play takes place in the kitchen and parlor of the house where DOAKER CHARLES lives with his niece, BERNIECE, and her eleven-year-old daughter, MARETHA. The house is sparsely furnished, and although there is evidence of a woman’s touch, there is a lack of warmth and vigor. BERNIECE and MARETHA occupy the upstairs rooms. DOAKER’s room is prominent and opens onto the kitchen. Dominating the parlor is an old upright piano. On the legs of the piano, carved in the manner of African sculpture, are mask-like figures resembling totems. The carvings are rendered with a grace and power of invention that lifts them out of the realm of craftsmanship and into the realm of art. At left is a staircase leading to the upstairs.

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

(The lights come up on the Charles household. It is five o’clock in the morning. The dawn is beginning to announce itself, but there is something in the air that belongs to the night. A stillness that is a portent, a gathering, a coming together of something akin to a storm. There is a loud knock at the door.)

BOY WILLIE: (Off stage, calling.) Hey, Doaker . . . Doaker!

(He knocks again and calls.)

Hey, Doaker! Hey, Berniece! Berniece!

(DOAKER enters from his room. He is a tall, thin man of forty-seven, with severe features, who has for all intents and purposes retired from the world though he works full-time as a railroad cook.)

DOAKER: Who is it?

BOY WILLIE: Open the door, nigger! It’s me . . . Boy Willie!

DOAKER: Who?

BOY WILLIE: Boy Willie! Open the door!

(DOAKER opens the door and BOY WILLIE and LYMON enter. BOY WILLIE is thirty years old. He has an infectious grin and a boyishness that is apt for his name. He is brash and impulsive, talkative and somewhat crude in speech and manner. LYMON is twenty-nine. BOY WILLIE’s partner, he talks little, and then with a straightforwardness that is often disarming.)