Samuel L. Jackson, Danielle Brooks, John David Washington to Lead Broadway Revival of The Piano Lesson

A starry revival of August Wilson's The Piano Lesson is heading to Broadway in 2022, reports columnist Baz Bamigboye of London's Daily Mail.

The drama is expected to be staged by Tony nominee LaTanya Richardson Jackson (To Kill a Mockingbird), marking her Broadway directorial debut, with a cast led by her husband, Samuel L. Jackson, as Doaker, John David Washington as Boy Willie, and Danielle Brooks as Berenice. It is planned that this company will then star in a film adaptation of the play, with a director still to be named.

Denzel Washington, Todd Black, and Scott Rudin will produce the film, which will be the third of Wilson's plays Washington has helped shepherd to the screen, a list that also includes Fences and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Reports of a new Piano Lesson film, with Jackson and Washington, first surfaced in the fall of 2020.

Set in the 1930s, The Piano Lesson is the story of two siblings and their struggle to come to terms with their inheritance and the ghosts of their past. Jackson originated the role of Boy Willie at Yale Rep in 1987. It was previously adapted for the screen in 1995, with a cast led by Charles S. Dutton.