Season Select: August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

AUGUST WILSON'S MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM

By August Wilson
Directed by Gavin Dillon Lawrence

Playing: Hill Theatre | June 21 - September 7
Featuring: Greta Oglesby, Nathan Barlow, Bryant Louis Bentley, Sydney Lolita Cusic, David Daniel, Chiké Johnson, Brian Mani and Lester Purry
Genre: American Classic
Last Seen at APT: First time!
Go If You Liked: August Wilson's Fences (2018), A Raisin in the Sun (2022), The Royale (2023)

About August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Ma Rainey sings with the voice of the rural, Black south; her flashy persona and ravaging blues a conduit and a salve for the joy and pain of generations. But the musical winds are ever-shifting, and brash trumpeter, Levee, burns for a more progressive sound – whatever the cost may be. Another great American Classic from August Wilson – a poet whose superpower is revealing the beauty in the everyday, peeling back the veneer to reveal a human condition that binds us all together. A powerhouse play with powerhouse performances ringing out from the Hill Theatre. Do not miss it.

The music and cultural impact of blues performer Ma Rainey has echoed across the globe for nearly a century, living on through variations on her signature style and through her extended legacy presented in works of literature.

Sterling A. Brown, the first poet laureate of Washington DC, immortalized Ma Rainey and her performances in his 1932 poem named after the artist. Author Alice Walker drew inspiration from Rainey when designing the character of Shug Avery, the traveling singer, for her 1982 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Color Purple. And, of course, in 1984, August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom opened on Broadway, bringing us to the Hill today.

Wilson’s American Century Cycle, a collection of ten plays that explores 100 years of the Black experience in the United States, one play for each decade, is primarily set in the playwright’s home city of Pittsburgh, specifically the Hill District. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the only play not set in Pittsburgh, trading the Steel City for the Windy City of Chicago.

Set in a sweltering recording studio of Paramount Records – a firm that has deep Wisconsin ties, coincidently – Ma Rainey and her band gather to record Rainey staples “Prove It on Me Blues,” “Hear Me Talking to You,” “Moonshine Blues” and, of course, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” While the band members are fictionalized by Wilson, the music is certainly not. The blues was a musical vessel for Rainey and other artists of the time period to express personal desires, as well as vocalize generational pain in a Jim Crow landscape. The blues offered a source of connection and perspective when it came to African American daily life in the early 20^th century.

The sincerity and showmanship of her music earned Ma Rainey the title of “Mother of the Blues,” and has gone on to impact generations of musicians and artists since her death in 1939. August Wilson found inspiration in Rainey while listening to one of her records, causing him to stop and think about the process of recording the music as well as the real cost of such success within the parameters of an oppressive society.

Artistic Director Brenda DeVita Says

We are so thrilled to be producing Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom on the Hill this season. I love all of Wilson’s work but truth be told, this is my very favorite of his plays.

We’ve been looking forward to continuing August Wilson’s American Century Cycle since we staged our production of Fences in 2019. You will remember Gavin Lawrence was part of that glorious cast, playing Gabriel. And this season he brings his passion for Wilson to directing. It will be Gavin’s first time directing on the Hill, but not his first time directing at APT – he directed our gorgeous production of The Brothers Size a couple years ago in the Touchstone – and we can’t wait to see his artistry infuse this poetry and bring it to life on our Hill. And, what a cast!

We are so blessed to have the great Greta Oglesby back to play Ma Rainey. Greta is an incredible actor (and a little trivia, she was hand-picked by August Wilson to originate the role of Ester in Gem of the Ocean. How’s that for cred?). I was blown away when I had the chance to see Greta play Ma some years back, and to think she will grace our stage as Ma is thrilling to me.

Nathan Barlow is playing Levee. If you saw him as the ephemeral Elegba in Brothers Size or as Benvolio in last season’s Romeo & Juliet, you know the depth of his skill, and the size of his heart. The talented Chiké Johnson is back with us once again and Bryant Louis Bentley, who so beautifully played Bono in our production of Fences, will join us as well.

This cast and Gavin are so skilled and so passionate about this project - it is going to be a complete joy to watch this story unfold, bringing August Wilson’s gripping poetry to life. I do love this play! Please don’t miss it!