September 24, 2014
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Page II
North, Portland
photo by B rud G iles
Ronald Scott and Chantal DeGroat star in the Portland Playhouse's rendition of The Piano Lesson. The August Wilson play, now playing at The Church, 602 N.E.
Prescott St., reflects the African-American experience, covering questions of legacy and reminders of painful family pasts.
August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson
Portland Playhouse at The Church presents
O livia O livia
T he P ortland O bserver
by
August W ilson’s award-winning cycle
of plays, each set in a different decade of
the 20th Century, left him one of the
great playwrights o f the 20th Century
and the indisputable father of Black
American theatre.
His third play, The Piano Lesson, won
the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and is
set in 1936. Portlanders have the chance
to catch the show starting this week,
when it opens at the Portland Playhouse
at The Church at 602 N.E. Prescott St.
The Piano Lesson covers questions of
legacy and reminders o f painful family
pasts, forcing characters to choose be
tween what they must leave behind for
the next generation of black Americans
in post-Depression era Pittsburgh.
The play shares many cross-over art
ists, actors, and teachers from Portland’s
August Wilson Red Door Project, which
serves local high school students in an
effort to introduce them to W ilson’s
work and theatre in general. (See re
lated story, front page.)
Chantal DeGroat, lead teaching artist,
stars in the Playhouse production, while
co-founder of the Red Door Project,
A frican-A m erican playw right Kevin
Jones, is the director.
Two young girls from northeast Port
land schools switch o ff the role of
M aretha.
Sinai La'ryn Jones, a student at King
School is making her Portland theatre
scene debut. Jones took part in the Turn
around Arts program at King this past
year and was one of the few students
chosen to perform in front of President
Barack Obama with actress Sarah Jes
sica Parker at the White House.
Seraiah Hardy, a student at St. A n
drew Nativity School, also m akes her
professional debut with this show. The
students of St. A ndrew 's supported
the Playhouse two years ago when
they applied for a land use perm it to
keep their perform ance venue in the
King N eighborhood.
Bella Freeman-Moule, also a familiar
Portland Playhouse face, and a daughter
of board member Angela Freeman, will
continued
on page 19