Introduction August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson is part of his famous “Pittsburgh Cycle.” This ten-play series explores African American life in each decade of the twentieth century. In this play, Wilson focuses on the 1930s, showing how the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow still shapes ordinary families. The story reveals that, even far from the plantation, freedom often remains incomplete. The action takes place in 1936 in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. It unfolds during the Great Depression, a time when...