Black Nouveau
What do we carry with us from the past—and what do we build for the future?
Special | 2m 56sVideo has Closed Captions
Director Lou Bellamy reflects on the powerful themes at the heart of “The Piano Lesson"
Bellamy has a deep connection to August Wilson’s work. He directed Wilson’s first professional production in 1981 at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul and has directed nine of the ten plays in Wilson’s landmark American Century Cycle. Here, he shares insight into the meaning behind the piano at the center of the story—and the legacy it represents.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Black Nouveau is a local public television program presented by MILWAUKEE PBS
This program is made possible in part by the following sponsors: Johnson Controls.
Black Nouveau
What do we carry with us from the past—and what do we build for the future?
Special | 2m 56sVideo has Closed Captions
Bellamy has a deep connection to August Wilson’s work. He directed Wilson’s first professional production in 1981 at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul and has directed nine of the ten plays in Wilson’s landmark American Century Cycle. Here, he shares insight into the meaning behind the piano at the center of the story—and the legacy it represents.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
How to Watch Black Nouveau
Black Nouveau is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio.
Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- Just gonna be a piano.
You can't make more than that.
Now I wanna get Sutter's land with that piano.
I get Sutter's land, I can go down and cash in the crop and get my seed.
As long as I got the land and the seed, then I'm all right.
- What he shows in those plays is that American history is wider than typically it's taught.
And you will recognize certain earmarks, wars, recessions, all those things, but they're told from a Black perspective.
You might not recognize all of the nuance of it, but you see that these individuals who are capable beyond what their environment allows them to be, you begin to see what they're thinking and their understanding of the world.
- [Narrator] Lou Bellamy knows August Wilson.
He directed Wilson's first professional production in 1981 at the Penumbra Theatre in St.
Paul, Minnesota.
He's directed nine of the 10 plays in Wilson's 20th-century cycle and directed the Milwaukee Rep's current production of "The Piano Lesson."
- And I remember when August Wilson was writing it, and we had (laughs) a few discussions about that piano because my contention was that Boy Willie should have sold the piano and bought the land because land is wealth, and it's the basis of all wealth, land.
August's position was that culture and history is something that you can put in your pocket and take with you wherever you go.
It isn't in the dirt, in the land.
And that argument that he and I were having in a friendly sort of way, in an intellectually challenging kind of way, that conversation is what "The Piano Lesson" is about, whether to save culture, cultural artifacts, all that ephemera that goes along with being who we are, that versus an economic, practical perspective.
And it's one that we all wage on different levels.
He uses as his crucible that piano and the carvings on it.
(lively music)
Support for PBS provided by:
Black Nouveau is a local public television program presented by MILWAUKEE PBS
This program is made possible in part by the following sponsors: Johnson Controls.