The Library for the Performing Arts Play Club [IN PERSON]

Play Club is like a book club, but for plays! Whether you are familiar with the art of reading plays, or looking to expand your appreciation for dramatic literature, this book club is an opportunity to read plays you have been meaning to explore or have never considered reading before. Learn about new works, discover new playwrights, and make friends!

This group will read one playscript from the Library for the Performing Arts circulating collection every month, and then come together to discuss the work. We will read one scene from the play together and discuss the text in a book club discussion format.

This program will take place in person at the Library for the Performing Arts Harvey Fiertsein Theatre Lab. If you would like to participate in an on Zoom.

This program is intended for adult patrons.

Thursday, February 26 at 6:30pm -

It's 1927 and Ma Rainey, the “Mother of the Blues,” is recording new sides of old favorites in a rundown studio in Chicago. Fiery and determined, Ma Rainey fights to retain control over her music, while her cocky trumpet player Levee dreams of making his own name in the business. More than music goes down in August Wilson's riveting portrayal of rage, racism, self-hatred and exploitation.

August Wilson was an American playwright best known for his extraordinary cycle of ten plays that chronicle the 20th century African-American experience. All but one of Wilson’s masterful plays are set in the Hill District, the working-class Pittsburgh neighborhood of his birth. Each play is set in a different decade. “Put them all together,” Wilson once said, “and you have a history.” All of Wilson’s ten plays in the cycle have been produced on Broadway, two of which have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (Fences, 1987 and The Piano Lesson, 1990). Two of Wilson’s plays, Fences and Ma’ Rainey’s Black Bottom, have been developed into movies, each garnering numerous awards and honors. Following Wilson’s death in 2005, the Virginia Theatre in New York City’s Broadway Theater District was renamed the August Wilson Theatre, the first Broadway theater to bear the name of an African-American person.

We have a few copies of the play available at the Library for the Performing Arts, but if you are looking for additional copies, the Drama Book Shop has graciously set aside copies of the play at a discounted price of 10% off for Play Club attendees. (While supplies last.) Please visit the Drama Book Shop to purchase your copy.

Photo Credit: From left, Thomas Jefferson Byrd, Charles S. Dutton and Whoopi Goldberg in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by August Wilson. Photograph by Joan Marcus, 2003. Billy Rose Theatre Division.

ASSISTIVE LISTENING AND ASL | ASL interpretation and real-time (CART) captioning available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing [email protected].

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Host or Publisher New York Public Library for the Performing Arts