Detroit Repertory Theatre’s ‘The Piano Lesson’: Come for the Classic, Stay for the Firepower
If you are in the mood for theatre that politely entertains, wraps up neatly, and sends you home humming something cheerful, Detroit Repertory Theatre would like to respectfully decline your request. Detroit Rep’s production of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson is not here to be pleasant. It is here to be necessary. It is here to shake the dust off your soul, drag history into the light, and remind you that some inheritances are not passed down in dollars, but in grief, pride, and unfinished business.
Running January 9 through March 15, 2026, and directed by Janai Lashon in her professional directorial debut, this Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece lands at Detroit Rep with force. And while Wilson’s writing is already a giant of American theatre, what makes this production especially compelling is how fiercely the cast commits to it. This is not a group of performers “doing” August Wilson. This is a group of artists living inside it.
[Warning: spoilers from Detroit Repertory Theatre’s The Piano Lesson are below!]
A story that starts with a piano and ends somewhere deeper at The Detroit Repertory Theatre
At the center of The Piano Lesson is an object that is anything but ordinary. This piano is not simply furniture. It is a family archive carved into wood, a physical record of trauma and survival, and the kind of heirloom that holds stories whether anyone wants to listen or not.
Wilson gives us two siblings who cannot agree on what the piano should mean. Boy Willie (Delanti Hall) wants to sell it to buy land down South, believing that transforming painful history into ownership and opportunity is the most powerful kind of tribute. Berniece (Jacquese Steele) refuses, because to her the piano is sacred, a connection to their ancestors and their family’s story that cannot be priced, traded, or replaced. It is a conflict that sounds simple until you watch it unfold. Then you realize it is not about money. It is about what progress looks like. It is about whether healing means holding on or letting go. And it is about the terrifying reality that the past does not stay politely in the past.
The direction and casting of The Piano Lesson
Director Janai Lashon approaches this play with the kind of care that signals a deep understanding of what Wilson is really doing here. The Piano Lesson requires a director who knows how to balance the earthy realism of family drama with the supernatural pulse beneath it. This production threads that needle beautifully. Lashon does not treat the spiritual elements as “effects,” and she does not undermine them with a subtlety so timid as to become meaningless. Instead, the haunting in this play creeps in like memory itself. It becomes part of the air in the room. The result is a production that feels grounded and eerie at once, like an argument that starts in the kitchen and ends with the ancestors leaning in to listen.
Delanti Hall as Boy Willie is a major reason this production works as well as it does. Boy Willie is a tricky character because he can easily come across as selfish, loud, and bulldozing, especially if an actor plays only the surface. Hall does something smarter. He gives Boy Willie charisma, yes, but also an urgency that borders on panic. This Boy Willie does not just want land. He needs it. He treats it like oxygen. Hall’s performance makes it clear that Boy Willie is not arguing because he enjoys conflict. He is arguing because he believes this might be his only shot to turn generations of injustice into something permanent and undeniable. His boldness reads like a survival strategy, not arrogance.
Jacquese “Jac” Steele’s Berniece is the emotional anchor of Detroit Rep’s The Piano Lesson, a performance rooted in restraint, grief, and the kind of guarded strength that comes from carrying too much for too long. Steele does not play Berniece as simply stubborn or withholding. Instead, every pause and sharp glance feels like protection, like a woman who has learned the hard way that survival sometimes means silence. When Berniece finally lets the walls crack, the impact is enormous because Steele has spent the entire production building that pressure with precision. There is a raw humanity in the way they navigate Berniece’s fear, frustration, and fierce love for her family’s legacy, making it impossible not to understand why the piano is not just an object to her, but a sacred witness to everything her ancestors endured.
As Doaker, Will Bryson brings a kind of grounded steadiness that the play needs like a heartbeat. Doaker is the family historian, the witness, the man who understands the weight of the past because he has had to hold it for years. Bryson plays him with warmth and quiet steel. There is something deeply reassuring about his presence, even as the story spirals into chaos. Bryson delivers Wilson’s long story passages with clarity and gravity, and he makes the family’s legacy feel lived-in rather than recited. His Doaker is not just an observer. He is a man who has survived enough to know that memory does not vanish just because someone says they are tired of carrying it.
Any actor playing Wining Boy can either fade into the background or become unforgettable. T. Pharaoh Muhammad (Primary Trust) chooses unforgettable. There is a sharpness to his performance, a mix of swagger, bruised spirit, and hard-earned wisdom. Wining Boy is a character who understands regret, and Muhammad knows exactly when to lean into comedy and when to let the melancholy bleed through. He brings texture. He brings history. He makes the play’s world bigger, richer, and more human.
As Avery, Izaya Spencer brings a welcome softness to a play full of confrontations. Avery can easily become a side character who exists only to contrast Boy Willie, but Spencer makes him feel fully realized. He plays Avery with sincerity that never becomes bland, and he gives him a moral steadiness that feels earned. His scenes provide emotional air in a play that can feel like constant pressure. Spencer’s Avery becomes a reminder that some people cope with history by seeking faith, structure, and hope. His performance makes that coping mechanism feel genuine rather than convenient. The Piano Lesson is not only about the central family conflict. It is also about the community that surrounds it, the side characters who reveal what life looks like outside this house.
Sharmaine Jones as Grace is a burst of presence and personality, bringing energy that offsets the tension and reminds the audience that life continues even amid generational war. Jocelyn Cierra Letts as Maretha brings a necessary innocence and emotional clarity to the household, and her role matters more than people often realize because she represents the future everyone is fighting about. And Nathan Alford-Tate as Lymon offers grounded charm, bringing a sense of real humanity and texture to the story’s social world. None of these performances feels like “extra pieces.” They feel like the fabric of the world Wilson built.
August Wilson’s genius is that the haunting in The Piano Lesson does not feel like a spooky add-on. It feels like the truth. Detroit Rep’s cast commits to that truth. When the story moves into spiritual territory, there is no hesitation, no wink to the audience, no playing it safe. The ensemble treats the supernatural as an inevitable consequence. And that is exactly how this play should land. The past is not metaphor here. It is active. It is alive. It demands acknowledgement.
Final verdict on August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson
Detroit Repertory Theatre’s The Piano Lesson is a powerful, emotionally charged production that leans into August Wilson’s language with confidence and care. Under Janai Lashon’s focused direction and fueled by an excellent cast, this staging feels urgent rather than museum-like. It is funny in places, brutal in others, and ultimately haunting in the way only great theatre can be.
If you are craving work that reminds you why theatre matters, why legacy matters, and why some arguments are bigger than the people having them, Detroit Rep is delivering. Don’t wait to grab your seats for The Piano Lesson; this production is running now through March 15th, and performances can fill up fast. Snag your tickets today and treat yourself to a night of drama! Are you going to this production of August Wilson’s play? Let us know @bsb.insider on social media!
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