Video: Inside Opening Night of THE PIANO LESSON on Broadway

I'm ready to get this show on the road

I'm ready to get on that stage and lay it down. Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece. The piano lesson is back on Broadway

Under the direction of Latania Richardson Jackson, it stars a stellar cast

including Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, and Danielle Brooks. And we caught up with the company on opening night

just minutes before their opening night curtain went up. I'm ecstatic. It's just beautiful time to be here, wonderful time in New York City, and we're continuing a legacy

I couldn't be more happy. I feel excited. I feel relieved. All the fields. All the fields. It's great to be here

It's been a lot of work getting here. Listen, I'm excited. Every time there's an opening night, I'm excited

But this particular group of people, this family, I can't wait for them to have this

moment. Opening nights are electric. They're spontaneous, they're unusual. I'm just very excited

about this group to have their anointing today. I feel overwhelmed. I am trying to stay in the

moment, but I, you know, I'm ready to get this show on the road and tell this story, and I'm

very grateful that I get to tell this story up until January, you know, mid-January. It's been a very

overwhelming experience and the more I talk about it the more emotional I get so I'm

going to have to stop. It feels so exciting and so momentous and I have to pinch

myself because the cast there's not a weak link among them and they are all so

prepared and all the forces of the universe came together for this show tonight

and we are celebrating the opening. You know we've got everybody stepping up to the

plate. It feels like we're playing the best game of volleyball one could ever hope for

We're all keeping it up in the air for each other. We've got each other's backs, no matter what ends up happening on stage And it nice to know that you got the net of really just grounded and giving actors to be able to help you through whatever it is that comes across Oh my God I feel great I feel awesome I am very blessed and honored to be at this moment in this time

walking this carpet, seeing this play and being a part of an understudy in the play

Oh, I feel so great. It's so good to finally be here. We have been in rooms together

We've like opened up to the audience and changed things and been in it

And now we're just, we get to play and. be free and see how this play unfolds in front of a full audience. It's really exciting

I feel so overjoyed. Simply overjoyed. I feel honored. It's a privilege. August Wilson

the Jackson's, the Washington's. Later this evening, you're going to meet Trey Byers. You're

going to meet Ray Fisher, April Mathis, Michael Potts. These people have come together and built

a community, a family. August Wilson would be proud today. I feel great. I'm very happy that

This is, we finally made it to this point. It's been great developing this piece really quickly and having as many previews as we did to kind of feel it out with an audience and learn the rhythms of how to tell this story in a way that keeps the momentum going and to carry it with buoyancy and lightness and deftiness and fun

So I'm really happy with where we are in the show and I just, my family's here

so I'm really happy. I must say, like, I'm excited. It's a lot of emotions

but I'm not going to let it faze me because at the end of the day, I got a performance to put on

I got to keep my head in the game. I got to focus. But, like, I can't let all these lights

It's just, like, light scanners action. It's amazing. It's really wonderful to be working with this cast

They're really, like, family to each other. And we have this vision

that we're trying to accomplish to put through and this meaning behind the story, that's amazing

The fact that this was the first August Wilson play that I discovered at around 1516

to then use the Bernice monologue at 17 to get into Juilliardt, to now, however many years

later to be getting to play Bernice in totality with Sam Jackson Miss Latina directing in J Washington And the entire cast I very humbled by my journey

All of the actors I pretty much knew going into this, and they allowed me to try to bring a vision to August's work

with the intention clear about what I think he was saying and what we could reimagine

and to have my husband to be along for that ride is more than anything I could have imagined

and to have my little children like John David. These were kids, you know, that I have held and diapers

So for me, this is just a full-circle moment. She had a revolutionary vision for what this play was

I've seen this play a lot. I've never seen it this way. So proud to be a part of it

and to be able to make this thing come, to life the way she's made it come to life. Or as you said, an exciting night in the theater

It makes me happy that I'm back on stage doing something that I think people really enjoy

The sharing of that energy between us and an audience is amazing. And I hope it only gets better

as we continue to do it. Well, I'm a Wilsonian from way back. I've done all ten of the plays

This is my fifth production of piano lesson. It's big fun. I love the words. I love the rehearsal

I love the process. It's big, big fun. He's our Shakespeare. He's the black Shakespeare

He is not even qualifying it. He is one of America's greatest writers

So listening to some of these monologues that JD has and that Sam has just

as they unfold and unspool and creating these images for us, it's beautiful

And every night you hear something just a little different. Living in the words of August Wilson

it's like being able to stand on the shoulders of giants. This is word

Words mean so much to a lot of people. There's a musicality to the words

being able to live in the rhythm of the premier playwright who has understood the black experience

in a way that no other playwright that I've seen has been able to put down on paper

It feels like a write of passage in a really big way I hear August personally I do 34 years ago this is how I met August I was the costume designer for this show at Yale Repertory Theater

And so for me, I hear little private jokes throughout the play that August told me about

and little stories, snippets of stories that he told me about how he came up with all of the ideas

So for me, definitely it's a walk-through memory, but it's also, I feel so proud to be able to share it with everybody

This is August's nephew, Paul Ellis. He started the August Wilson House in Pittsburgh

It was an incredible experience, a very long journey to contribute to the national artistic scene

both in terms of African-American cultural assets and in terms of August Wilson's legacy

It was just a win-win for everybody. The residents of the city of Pittsburgh loved it

The neighborhood that August Wilson grew up in, which was the Hill District, they loved it

It will never be the same. It's not going to be the same neighborhood. It's an arts center

And what would it have meant to August when it was there? Invalial

My uncle spent his entire career opening up doors for other artists and artistic professionals

So the goal was not to make it a museum, but to make sure that there was an active art space

a way for people to come and learn and grow, get technical support, showcase their work

things like that, opening up doors. So it turned into be an economic anchor

community revitalization, and of course a national historical landmark. So it's just a win for everybody

and we're very, very proud of it. Theater is my first love. So even, you know, I was talking to my dad

and we were talking, and I was telling him, nervous sometimes I get about all the people that's coming

He was like, just stay focused on the person who's never seen in August Wilson

and he's so right. Like, that's why I got into this when I first saw the color purple

So to now have this chance to introduce a lot of new people to August Wilson is a big deal