Joe Turner was real. Brother of the Tennessee Governor, he would swoop down on Black men in the early 1900s – gambling, preaching, just walking down the road – and keep them enslaved on chain gangs for seven years. “They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone / Got my man and gone” – the women sang it, a blues…
Years after August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson” was first produced on Broadway in 1990, Black playwrights have continued to grapple with this enduring question which defines the struggle between Bernice (an indomitable and passionate Danielle Brooks) and her brother Boy Willie (a broken but resilient John David Washington) in Wilson’s epic drama: “Is it possible to build one’s future without…
Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival 2021 Main Stage Review: “How I Learned What I Learned” (Through Sunday July 11, 2021 By August Wilson Co-Conceived by Todd Kreidler Directed by Christopher V. Edwards Reviewed by David Roberts, Theatre Reviews Limited Looking carefully at the many windows looming upstage on Baron E. Pugh’s set for the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival 2021 Main Stage production of “How I…