The Piano Lesson
American Stage The Raymond James Theatre St. Petersburg, FL
Lighting design for the 2013 production of The Piano Lesson at American Stage, directed by Mark Clayton Southers.
About the Lighting Design
The Piano Lesson was my first professional production in the Tampa area. A big unit set, a realistic house interior, and design choices grounded in reality.
The show had some theatrical moments where the design leaned out from naturalism, but the framework was the house and the people in it. Practical sources, window light shifting time of day through the show, the natural color temperature of a day inside a real room. Theatrical work showed up only when the script asked for it.
- Playwright
- August Wilson
- Director
- Mark Clayton Southers
- Scenic Designer
- Frank Chavez
- Lighting Designer
- Mike Wood
- Technical Director
- Timon Brown
About the Show
Set in 1936 Pittsburgh, Berniece and her brother Boy Willie clash over the fate of the family piano; she treasures it as a precious connection to their ancestors, and he sees it as the means to a more prosperous future. Boy Willie arrives in Pittsburgh from the South in a battered truck loaded with watermelons to sell, hoping to earn money to purchase land in Mississippi that belonged to a white man named Sutter, who has recently died. The piano symbolizes much more than mere property; it carries the weight of the family's ancestral legacy, having been acquired through a traumatic history involving slavery and sacrifice.
Source: Concord
Production Photos
Press
Costumes by Saidah Ben Judah and Lighting Design by Mike Wood are more effective, especially the lightning storm that proceeds the exorcism.