But that's all you got. You can’t do nothing else. All you know how do is play the piano. Now, who am I? Am I me? Or am I the piano player?" His former days of glory emphasize the submergence of his soul in the past. Wining Boy is also the only other character, aside from Berniece, who can speak with the dead. He speaks to the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog and to his deceased wife, Cleotha. Grace: One of the last figures to be added to the play, Grace shows the desires of both Boy Willie and Lymon. Both men attempt to be with her and play to her good graces. Since she is not a member of the Charles family, the tension she feels in the last scene of Act Two demonstrates how strong the presence of the ancestral ghosts are in the Charles household. Mentioned characters Crawley: Berniece's deceased husband of three years Mama Ola: Berniece and Boy Willie's mother Boy Charles: Berniece and Boy Willie's father Sutter's Ghost: The man who owned the Charles family in the time of slavery Cleotha: Wining Boy's deceased wife Cast and characters Productions The Piano Lesson debuted as a staged reading at the 1986 National Playwrights Conference held at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. The first production opened on November 26, 1987 at the Yale Repertory Theatre. The cast featured Carl Gordon, Samuel L. Jackson, Rocky Carroll, Starletta DuPois, Chenee Johnson, Ylonda Powell, Tommy Hollis, Lou Myers, and Sharon Washington. The production was directed by Lloyd Richards and featured set design by E. David Cosier, Jr., costume design by Constanza Romero, lighting design by Christopher Akerlind, sound design by J. Scott Servheen, and musical direction by Dwight Andrews. It then opened at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston on January 9, 1988. Charles S. Dutton assumed Jackson's role. The Piano Lesson was subsequently performed at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. S. Epatha Merkerson and LisaGay Hamilton assumed DuPois and Washington's roles, respectively. The production then premiered on Broadway with the same cast at the Walter Kerr Theatre on April 16, 1990. The Piano Lesson was revived off-Broadway in 2012 in a production directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson and with a cast including Chuck Cooper and Brandon J. Dirden. A critic claims that it may well be "the most perfect staging this play will ever receive." A Broadway revival of the