Key quotes by Avery:

“Life’s got all kinds of twists and turns. That don’t mean you stop living.” (67) “Life is more than making it from one day to another… Life’s gonna be gone out of your hands-there won’t be enough to make nothing with.” (68)

Regarding Berniece’s troubles, “You got to step over them or walk around them.” (70)

Key quotes by Wining Boy:

Regarding Sutter dying, “That just go to show you I believe I always lived right. They say every dog gonna have his day and time it go around it sure come back to you.” (28)

“I agree with Berniece. Boy Charles ain’t took it to give it back.” (57)

Key quotes by Doaker:

“You’d be surprised how many people trying to go North get on a train going West. They think the train’s supposed to go where they going rather than where it’s going.” (18) “They leaving cause they can’t get satisfied.” (18) “They got so many trains out there they have a hard time keeping them from running into each other… If everybody stay in one place I believe this would be a better world.” (19) “It might not be where you going. If it ain’t, then all you got to do is sit and wait cause the train’s coming back to get you. The train don’t never stop.” (19)

“That why we say Berniece ain’t gonna sell that piano. Cause her daddy died over it.” (46) “Ain’t nobody said nothing about who’s right and who’s wrong.” (46)

“Berniece need to go on and get rid of it. It ain’t done nothing but cause trouble.” (57)

“I’m just living the best way I know how. I ain’t thinking about no top or no bottom.” (93)

Key quotes by Berniece:

“Don’t be going down there showing your color” (27)

 “Money can’t buy what that piano cost. You can’t sell your soul for money.” (50)

“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 of wood? To get even with somebody?... All this thieving and killing and thieving and killing. And what it ever lead to? More killing and more thieving.” (52)

Key quotes by Boy Willie:

Regarding Lymon’s cousin back in Mississippi, “Got near about a hundred acres. He got it set up real nice” (5).

Regarding the land he wants to buy, “Got a hundred acres. Good land” (10). “This time I get to keep all the cotton. Hire me some men to work it for me. Gin my cotton. Get my seed” (11).

“But I ain’t scared of work. I’m going back and farm every acre of that land.” (17)

“Berniece don’t believe in nothing. She just think she believe. She believe in anything if it’s convenient for her to believe. But when that convenience run out then she ain’t got nothing to stand on.” (35)

Design Principle (summary)

The design principle that I have stuck with throughout this production is never having too much, but never having too little. I feel like this reflects the two opposite characters, Berniece and Boy Willie, perfectly. Berniece can never be too small. She wants to accept herself as something that the world doesn’t appreciate. As for Boy Willie, he can never have too much. He always wants more and more. This balance reflects Doaker, the one who is content with his life and lives the best way he can.
I’m also going for a realistic approach for this play. If there is comedy in the script, I don’t see it. The only theatrical, imaginary moments I see are when Sutter’s ghost comes out. Even that I want to take seriously. The atmosphere therefore needs to be dull, serious, gloomy, deteriorating, etc. It can’t have the appearance of hope, except for the piano because it pulls them all together in the end. I want it to be very shiny and a bright color of wood. Everything else fades to greens and yellows. Visually, I'm having too much in the costumes, but I'm having very little in the set.

The details of the set in the script literally say that it is scarcely furnaces and also has the slightest tough of a female hand, which I address with the curtains on each window. I make the floor of wooden panels and tile for the kitchen. I think these hard surfaces help emphasis the hard opinions that will happen in this play.
In costumes, you will actually see bright colors, usually one color per person, not just to draw your attention to them, but to also encourage the idea of life in each of them, no matter how hopeless they appear. As for lighting, it will usually be warm, and backlit through the windows, depending on what time of day it is. Like I said, I want it to be very realistic. I might change the lights to blue when the ghost comes out, but we’ll see. I was thinking about doing some dark gold lights when they are chanting slavery songs they sung when they were in jail. I listen to the soundtrack of the original score from the first director, and it was very serious and solemn. It might help illustrate its importance.

Costume: Berniece and Doaker (sketch)

For a thirty-something-year-old, she sure does get a lot of complements on her looks in this play, so I gave Berniece a feminine touch, regardless that she's not dating. As for Doaker, he's "retired from the world," so I made this fifty-something-year-old seem a lot older than he really is.

Costume Chart (three major characters)

Scene	A1, S1	A1, S2	A2, S1	A2, S2	A2, S3	A2, S4	A2, S5
Doaker	Pajamas (1)	Casual clothes (28)	Pajamas (55) cook uniform (64)			Cook uniform (83)	Casual clothes (85)
Boy Willie	First working clothes (1)	Second working clothes (32)	First working clothes (59)		First working clothes (72)	First working clothes (81)	First working clothes (85)
Berniece	Pajamas (3) maid apron over first casual clothes (26)	Maid apron over second casual clothes (48) takes it off on (50)		Pajamas (65)	Pajamas (74)		Maid apron over first casual clothes (86)

I had to do a chart for at least three main characters. This was actually a lot harder than I expected! The play spans over a few days, which makes it almost impossible for the characters not to change into different attires each day.

Stage Layout Thumbnails

 I took my final bird's-eye-view layout of the stage and turn it into a 2D perspective from the audience. Fun fact: I added a window on the right above the stairs because I felt that the wall was a bit empty. Now it's even more noticeable when the sun comes out!

This is less of a forward perspective from the orchestra and more of a downward (mezzanine) look of the stage. It's much more detailed, with light switches and outlets. The animated man is there for scale. Sadly, no matter how hard I tried, the parlor is drawn a little more stretched out than intended. I also changed my mind about the color of the couch: I think it should be a dull color like the rest of the house. I want all focus on the piano and outfits on characters to draw attention to the characters themselves.

The Evolutions of the Floor Plan (bird's eye view)

I went through quite a lot of brainstorming to get to my ideal room layout. This first image was drawn as I was reading the script. Hopefully you can decipher what's what...

The perspective of looking into a corner seemed neat, so I explored the ground plan below.

 Unfortunately, I didn't think this was easy to maneuver around. The door to the left barely opens! Also, I don't think a couch would be there, diagonal in a room like that, even if you can see only "half of the room."

 I moved on to something bigger, more spacious. I messed around with platforms. The piano eventually ended up on the right, so ignore the weird trapezoid shapes next to the stairs. I figured most houses didn't have platforms to put pianos on. The audience can see the piano just fine on the right, on the floor.

 I ended up scratching this layout too because it was also unrealistic to have a trapezoid/hexagon shape for a house!

Finally, I hit a winner. It was rectangular, spacious enough to walk around in, small enough to have been owned by lower class, and the picture also includes tiny extra details that finish off the layout, like directions (since they're mentioned in the play) and off stage lighting (for the morning and night effects)!

Visual Research (50 images!)

Most of the things in this collage are items from the play surrounding the 1930's (fashion, hairstyles, kitchenware, etc.), but there are some things here that don't show up in the play but are mentioned by the characters, like the train and the truck. Enjoy! I used all of these images for inspiration!

Design Idea Exercise

A. Identify and write down all the dichotomies in the play. Are particular characters associated with these two polar extremes?
           bottom vs top, man vs woman, rich vs poor, religious vs nonreligious, paranormal vs head games, decent vs disrespectable, black vs white

D. List the primary themes of the play (about 5). Then, word-associate off each of the themes (5-10 per theme). Lastly, look at your word lists and see if you can combine some of them into new ideas.

a. One must work with what they have to get where they want to go.

·         murder, stealing, labor, bottom, work, talent, exertion, toil, patience, corrupt, cheating

b. Life goes on, whether one likes it or not.

·         missed, regret, achievements, responsibility, kids, death, birth, heritage, phases

c. There’s always two sides to every story.

·         evil, good, misunderstood, war, violence, teams, rivalry

d. An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind.

·         bible, corruption, eyes, out-of-hand, chaos, regression

e. Money won’t buy happiness.

·         money, fame, mature, adulthood, humble, modest, family, carpe diem

I’d see a lot of fatigue and poverty in my words, so I’d make the atmosphere old and unkempt.

E. Make a list of all the words that describe how an environment feels.

            gloomy, old, unkempt, dull, colorless, bland, empty, aging, regression

G. Made a list of verbs that answer the following questions: “What is going on?” “What is happening here?”

            betray, rival, mislead, lie, intrude, steal, take, gossip, justify, defend, reason, fight, argue, work, earn, realize, bond, grow, unite, love

Character Analysis: Boy Willie

A.  Physical Traits
Gender, Age, Race/Ethnicity, Size, Appearance, Ways of moving or speaking? Male, 30 years old, African American, slender probably (he’s a farm worker), he “has an infectious grin and a boyishness… talkative and somewhat crude in speech and manner” (1-2).        

B.  Social Traits

Economic status, Occupation and hobbies, Influential childhood experiences, Education, Social relationships, Family relationships. He’s lower class, working on farms, “chopping down trees” (5). He doesn’t own his own land, which is why he wants to buy some of Sutter’s. His father was killed while stealing a piano, and he is like his father in the way that when he wants something, he goes after it. He believes now that the piano should be used to buy himself some land. I’m not sure of his education, but I think he had little. He doesn’t know anyone higher up except for maybe Sutter’s brother who is possibly going to sell him the land. He’s not close with any of his family because he doesn’t see them too often. He hangs out with Lymon, a friend, instead.

Family Tree

I definitely needed a family tree for this production because WOW! There are a lot of members in this family.

There are actually several mentions of more off-stage characters that probably deserve their own family tree. For instance, Lymon is Boy Willie's best friend. There are brief moments where his father is mentioned, but that's not too bad. But Sutter has his own little family: it was a bit confusing to figure out at first, but in the end it only consisted of a few generations of four people.

The Charles family is made up of six generations with multiple siblings, and if I didn't write them all down, I would've been totally lost. I also added a key to label who was deceased, maybe deceased, and who wasn't.

Skript Analysis

I.  WHERE ARE THEY?
            A. In what country, city, place, building, room, etc.? The Charles house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “How he gonna find his way all the way up here to Pittsburgh?” (pg. 14)
            B. How do the characters describe the place they are in? In the “Setting” section, it says that the house or what we can see of it (the kitchen, parlor, and staircase to the upstairs) is “sparsely furnished, and although there is evidence of a woman’s touch, there is a lack of warmth and vigor.”
            C. Is there any special significance to the place they are in? There is an upright piano in the parlor that is the centerpiece of the play. Also, they are in the North of America, which is much different than the South in this time period. There are small mentions of this throughout the play.

Costume: Boy Willie (IRL)

So I pulled some actual pieces out of my university's costume collection to try to create my look for Boy Willie. It's pretty accurate if you don't look at sizes for the different articles of clothing. You got Boy Willie's had, his suspenders, his pants (these are corduroy), and his shoes.

I wish I could have found a better cotton shirt though. This one is not stark white. The sleeves are longer than I hoped. The neck line has some kind of buttons, whereas I wanted mine to have none. In fact, that shirt wasn't even pulled from the men's section. That's right, that's a woman's blouse. With it tucked nicely into the pants like that, however, it's easy to imagine Boy Willie In Real Life, which is fine by me. :)

Costume: Boy Willie and Lymon (sketch)

Boy Willie is one of the main characters in this play (as you will see later in my character analysis). So I needed him to stand out. I chose to put him in a cotton shirt that was entirely white to draw the eye. I also gave him suspenders that held his pants up really high, which fit right in with that time period. Most boys and men wore them, especially in the working class. Boy Willie enters the play in is work clothes, since he went straight from picking watermelons to driving to the house, which took two days (Mississippi to Pittsburgh), in a pickup truck with Lymon.

Boy Willie is described as such: “BOY WILLIE is thirty years old. He has an infectious grin and a boyishness that is apt for his name. He is brash and impulsive, talkative and somewhat crude in speech and manner.” So I wanted to let the outfit breathe. I thought overalls would be too constricting for Boy Willie, although that would give him a boyish touch, so maybe in the second act. However, I like this outfit because it lets Boy Willie move around quickly and with energy, because he does tend to move around a lot in the play, always pestering someone about something.

All about this blog / timeline

I'm in a theatre college course at the moment, and our final project requires us to put ourselves in the director's seat and pick a play to mock produce. I chose The Piano Lesson by August Wilson because I've read Fences by him and loved it. A little about the author: August Wilson wrote a play for every decade in the 1900's to illustrate black lives during each of those time periods. I want to read all of them one day, but for right now The Piano Lesson is getting my full attention.

What to expect: I will be uploading everything from costume designs (one of my first posts after this) to character analyses and stage design. I will get as close to a real production as possible and documenting it all on here, except I will not actually be putting on a performance. SORRY! I wish I was, but there are five of us in this class and we can't all put on a play at once. That would be MADNESS! Enjoy!

Brista