The Piano Lesson Audition Packet Hello. This packet is full of everything you need in order to audition for ETHS’ production of The Piano Lesson that performs in February. Here, you can find: 1) Audition Information 2) About August Wilson 3) Play Information 4) Character Descriptions 5) Audition Monologues 6) Audition Form and Schedule Audition Information Auditions are Thursday, November 1st, from 4-6p. Students should be prepared to share at least a 30 second monologue (see below). Scripts are available as a resource and for checkout in the Fine Arts office. If you choose to audition, you can sign up for a five-minute slot here at https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0c4daea62ca5f49-auditions1 That five-minute slot is a chance to read your audition piece (again, available in part five of this packet). About August Wilson August Wilson (1945-2005) was a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright whose most famous work was a series of plays called The Pittsburgh Cycle/Century Cycle. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1985 for Fences – which also received a Tony Award – and in 1990 for The Piano Lesson. Fences was recognized further for the recent production featuring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis with three Tony Awards in 2010 for Best Revival of a Play, Best Performance by an Actor in a Play and Best Performance by an Actress in a Play. Following his death in 2005 the Virginia Theatre in New York/Broadway was renamed in his honor and is the first Broadway theatre to be named after an African-American. He is also honored by the August Wilson Center for African American Culture in Pittsburgh and August Wilson Way in Seattle. The Pittsburgh/Century Cycle a series of ten plays that charts the African American experience throughout the twentieth century. All of them are set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District except for one, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which is set in Chicago. Gem of the Ocean (2003) – 1900s Citizen Barlow enters the home of the 285-year-old Aunt Ester who guides him on a spiritual journey to the City of Bones. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1988) – 1910s The themes of racism and discrimination come to the fore in this play about a few freed African American slaves. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1984) – 1920s Ma Rainey’s ambitions of recording an album of songs are jeopardized by the ambitions and decisions of her band. The Piano Lesson (1990) – 1930s Brother and sister Boy Willie and Berniece clash over whether or not they should sell an ancient piano that was exchanged for their great grandfather’s wife and son in the days of slavery. Seven Guitars (1995) – 1940s Starting with the funeral of one of the seven characters, the play tracks the events that lead to the death. Fences (1987) – 1950s Race relations are explored again in this tale which starts with a couple of garbage men who wonder why they can’t become garbage truck drivers. Two Trains Running (1991) – 1960s Looking at the Civil Rights movement of the sixties, this play details the uncertain future promised to African Americans at the time. Jitney (1982) – 1970s Jitneys are unlicensed cab drivers operating in Pittsburgh’s Hill District when legal cabs won’t cover that area, the play follows the hustle and bustle of their lives. King Hedley II (1999) – 1980s One of Wilson’s darkest plays, an ex-con tries to start afresh by selling refrigerators with the intent of buying a video store. Characters from Seven Guitars reappear throughout. Radio Golf (2005) – 1990s Aunt Ester returns in this modern story of city politics and the quest from two monied Pittsburgh men to try and redevelop an area of Pittsburgh. The plays are not connected in the manner of a serial story but characters do repeatedly appear at different stages of their lives and the offspring of previous characters also feature; the figure of Aunt Ester features most often in the cycle. Another dominating feature of the work is the presence of an apparently mentally- impaired character; examples include Gabriel in Fences and Hedley in Seven Guitars. The Piano Lesson The Piano Lesson is set in Pittsburgh in 1936. Boy Willie has come to his uncle’s house to retrieve a piano that holds significant historical and sentimental value to the family. A battle ensues over the possession of the piano, which carries the legacy and opportunities of the characters and determines the choices they must make. Character Descriptions (5 males/3 females) Doaker Charles - Berniece and Boy Willie's uncle and the owner of the household in which the play takes place. Doaker is tall and thin and forty-seven years old. He spent his life working for the railroad. He functions as the play's testifier, recounting the piano's history. Like Wining Boy, the other member of the family's oldest living generation, Doaker offers a connection to the family's past through his stories. Boy Willie - Berniece's brash, impulsive, and fast-talking brother. The thirty-year-old Boy Willie introduces the central conflict of the play. Coming from Mississippi, he plans to sell the family piano and buy the land his ancestors once worked as slaves. By selling the piano, he avenges his father, Boy Charles, who spent his life property-less. Lymon - Boy Willie's longtime friend. The twenty-nine-year-old Lymon is more taciturn than his partner, speaking with a disarming "straightforwardness." Fleeing the law, he plans to stay in the north and begin life anew. An outsider to the family, he functions particularly in the beginning of the play as a sort of listener, eliciting stories from the family's past. Obsessed with women, he will also appear prominently in his seduction of Berniece, where he helps bring her out of her mourning for her dead husband. Berniece - Sister of Boy Willie. Unlike other characters, the stage notes for Berniece are somewhat sparse, describing her as a thirty-five-year-old mother still in mourning for her husband, Crawley. She blames her brother for her husband's death, remaining skeptical of his bravado and chiding him for his rebellious ways. Maretha - Berniece's eleven-year-old daughter. Maretha is beginning to learn piano. She symbolizes the next generation of the Charles' family, providing the occasion for a number of confrontations on what the family should do with its legacy. Avery Brown - A preacher who is trying to build his congregation. Avery moves north once Berniece's husband dies in an attempt to court Berniece. Thirty-eight years old, he is honest and ambitious, having "taken to the city like a fish to water," and found opportunities unavailable to him in the rural South. Fervently religious, he brings Christian authority to bear in the exorcism of Sutter's ghost Wining Boy - A wandering, washed-up recording star who drifts in and out of his brother Doaker's household whenever he finds himself broke. Wining Boy is one of the most memorable characters of the play. A comic figure, he functions as one of the play's primary storytellers, recounting anecdotes from his travels. He is one of the two older players in Wilson's scenes of male camaraderie, providing a connection to the family's history. Finally, Wining Boy also appears as the other character in the play who speaks with the dead, conversing with the Ghosts of Yellow Dog and calling to his dead wife, Cleotha. Grace - A young, urban woman whom Boy Willie and Lymon each try to pick up and date. Audition Monologues Boy Willie (All males) Now, I’m gonna tell you the way I see it. The only thing that make that piano worth something is them carvings Papa Willie Boy put on there. That’s what make it worth something. That was my great-grandaddy. Papa Boy Charles brought that piano into the house. Now, I’m supposed to build on what they left me. You can’t do nothing with that piano sitting up here in the house. That’s just like if I let them watermelons sit out there and rot. I’d be a fool. All right now, if you say to me, Boy Willie, I’m using that piano. I give out lessons on it and that help me make my rent or whatever. Then that be something else. I’d have to go on and say, well, Berniece using that piano. She building on it. Let her go on and use it. I got to find another way to get Sutter’s land. But Doaker say you ain’t touched that piano the whole time it’s been up here. So why you wanna stand in my way? Berniece (All females) You ain’t taking that piano out of my house. (She crosses to the piano) Look at this piano. Look at it. Mama Ola polished this piano with her tears for seventeen years. For seventeen years she rubbed on it till her hands bled. Then she rubbed the blood in ... mixed it up with the rest of the blood on it. Every day that God breathed life into her body she rubbed and cleaned and polished and prayed over it. “Play something for me, Berniece. Play something for me, Berniece.” Every day. “I cleaned it up for you, play something for me, Berniece.” You always talking about your daddy but you ain’t never stopped to look at what his foolishness cost your mama. Seventeen years’ worth of cold nights and an empty bed. For what? For a piano? For a piece a wood? To get even with somebody? I look at you and you’re all the same.