The Piano Lesson debuted as a staged reading at the 1986 National Playwrights Conference held at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center.[8]
The first production opened on November 26, 1987 at the Yale Repertory Theatre.[9] The cast featured Carl Gordon, Samuel L. Jackson, Rocky Carroll, Starletta DuPois, Chenee Johnson, Ylonda Powell, Tommy Hollis, Lou Myers, and Sharon Washington. The production was directed by Lloyd Richards and featured set design by E. David Cosier, Jr., costume design by Constanza Romero, lighting design by Christopher Akerlind, sound design by J. Scott Servheen, and musical direction by Dwight Andrews.
It then opened at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston on January 9, 1988. Charles S. Dutton assumed Jackson's role. The Piano Lesson was subsequently performed at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. S. Epatha Merkerson and LisaGay Hamilton assumed DuPois and Washington's roles, respectively.[10] The production then premiered on Broadway with the same cast at the Walter Kerr Theatre on April 16, 1990.[11]
The Piano Lesson was revived off-Broadway in 2012 in a production directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson and with a cast including Chuck Cooper and Brandon J. Dirden.[12] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that it may well be "the most perfect staging this play will ever receive."[13]
A Broadway revival of the play, directed by LaTanya Richardson Jackson, began previews on September 19, 2022 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre,[14][15] starring Samuel L. Jackson, Danielle Brooks, John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Trai Byers, Michael Potts, and April Matthis.[16][17] The production opened on October 13, 2022, and was performed through January 29, 2023.[18][19] The production has been praised for its cast, but received some criticism for its direction. According to Gloria Oladipo of The Guardian, "Wilson's seminal work is tonally misread, flattened into a sitcom about a haunted piano versus a family struggling to forge anew amid their past."[20]
