Netflix on Wednesday morning dropped the official trailer for its forthcoming film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning August Wilson play “The Piano Lesson,” featuring dramatic snippets of the movie that will play in select theaters beginning November 8 before streaming on Netflix starting November 22. Fresh off a limited engagement Broadway revival that ran from September 2022 to January 2023, the play is set in 1936 Pittsburgh in the aftermath of the Great Depression. It follows the lives of the Charles family in the Doaker Charles household and an heirloom, the family piano, which documents the family history through carvings made by their enslaved ancestor. Watch the new trailer above.
The film marks the feature directorial debut of Denzel Washington’s son Malcolm Washington, who also cowrote the screenplay with Virgil Williams. It stars Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Danielle Deadwyler, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu, Skylar Aleece Smith, Corey Hawkins, Jerrika Hinton and Gail Bean. Denzel Washington produces along with Todd Black.
The “Piano Lesson” synopsis released by Netflix reads as follows:
A battle is brewing in the Charles Household. At the center stands a prized heirloom piano tearing two siblings apart. On one side, a brother (John David Washington) plans to build the family fortune by selling it. On the other, a sister (Danielle Deadwyler) will go to any lengths to hold onto the sole vestige of the family’s heritage. Their uncle (Samuel L. Jackson) tries to mediate, but even he can’t hold back the ghosts of the past. Adapted from August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork, “The Piano Lesson” explores the intergenerational dynamics of identity, resilience and transcendence – revealing startling truths about how we perceive the past and who gets to define our legacy.
Concurrent with the release of the trailer this morning, “Piano Lesson” director Malcolm Washington released the following statement:
The process of adapting an American Classic is a terrifying and sacred undertaking.
The early months felt most like an archeological expedition. Co-writer Virgil Williams and I
huddled around the table of his desert home, combing through August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize
winning play, some days with a pickaxe, others with the soft bristles of a small brush delicately
unearthing precious gems, driven by the pursuit of understanding the intent in each line, each
action and each omission.
Our first mandate was to honor and uphold the legacy of August Wilson; imbue his spirit into
the work. I tried to open myself up to him and learn as much as I could. I read about his close
relationship with his mother, that he grew up behind Bella’s Market — a small storefront that we
honor in our film. I traveled to his neighborhood, Pittsburgh’s historic Hill District and walked
the streets he grew up on, spoke to his family, all while digging deeper and deeper into his
masterwork. I became a student of August Wilson but along the way a curious thing started to
happen; the more I learned about August, the more I saw myself in his story and in his work.
Boy Willie’s plight felt like much of my own, while I shared Berniece’s sensibilities and understanding of
the gravity of legacy. That like Berniece and Boy Willie, part of my purpose is to honor the lives and
legacies of my parents and our ancestors. That I too come from a long line of women and men, some
born into, then liberated from chattel slavery and that my life is possible because of the decisions,
sacrifices and actions of all of them; that it’s paramount for me to do something meaningful with it. That, in
the words of Boy Willie, “I’m supposed to build on what they left me.” This was the guiding light for my
work on this film, my buoy in the sea.
May this work be an offering to the ancestors, a humble act of gratitude and tribute to them,
and in honoring them, I honor the spirit of August Wilson and the legacy he left behind for all of
us. A legacy that thrives in the power of Danielle Deadwyler’s Berniece, the dynamism of John
David Washington’s Boy Willie, and the understated brilliance that is Samuel L. Jackson’s
Doaker.
Every family has a history, stories from the past that inform the present; an origin story.
Ultimately this story is much bigger than me and my family — it, like the Black American
experience, is an interconnected web of stories that span space and time. I hope that when
audiences experience our film, they see themselves on the screen and hear the voices of their
ancestors calling to them, offering peace and protection.
