ABO U T PL AY T H E

Seven Guitars premiered at the Walter Kerr Theatre in March of 1996, starring Keith David and Viola Davis. The play went on to be nominated for several Drama Desk, Drama League, New York Drama Critics’ Circle, Theatre World, Outer Critics Circle, and Tony Awards, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Ruben Santiago-Hudson, who played Canewell, won the Tony Award for Featured Actor in a Play; other wins included the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Direction of a Play for Lloyd Richards, and several others.

The play is the fifth in the chronological timeline of Wilson’s Century Cycle, but was the seventh to premiere with Jitney, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fences, Two Trains Running, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and The Piano Lesson being produced previously.

Seven Guitars is set in 1948 in the backyard of a Pittsburgh apartment building. The play begins with a gathering after the funeral of bluesman Floyd Barton and follows the events leading up to his death in a series of flashbacks. Barton has returned to Pittsburgh from Chicago where he has recorded his first hit song and hopes to pursue a larger recording career. His friends and fellow musicians Canewell and Red Carter plan to record with him in Chicago. Barton has also just finished a ninety-day sentence at the workhouse for “vagrancy.”

Floyd has returned to Pittsburgh to ask his ex-girlfriend Vera to accompany him back to Chicago, but she is wary, as he has not been faithful to her. Her friend and neighbor, Louise, tells it like it is and offers Vera support as she tries to make the decision.

Also living in the building is Hedley, who is dying of tuberculosis and wants to father a child as part of his legacy, but whose mental health issues color his interactions with others and lead to manic episodes with dire consequences. When Louise’s niece Ruby arrives to stay, Hedley sees an opportunity to pursue her as the mother of his future child, who he believes will be the liberator of all Black people.

As the play progresses, the audience sees the characters reflect on issues of racism, financial hardship, relationship dynamics, music, and surviving in a world determined to perpetuate inequality. The character’s lives are intertwined and circumstances lead to actions that have unalterable consequences.