One street on the North Side is beginning to look a bit like old-time Chicago.
August Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” reportedly is scheduled to begin shooting a screen adaptation for Netflix next week. The play, part of the Pittsburgh playwright’s American Century Cycle works that take place in each decade of the 20th century, exists entirely within a recording studio in 1927 Chicago. Might the film take it out into a bigger world, as the Oscar-nominated, filmed-in-Pittsburgh “Fences” stretched into street views?
Reminder of why I do what I do. ❤#MaRainey #Netflix pic.twitter.com/Wlbl3YgAgb
— Viola Davis (@violadavis) June 28, 2019
The Flashlight Factory building on West North Avenue, which is used as an event space, is adjacent to a gray-washed portion that now bears a sign reading “Chicago Box & Crate Company.”
Across West North Avenue, apparently unrelated work was being done Monday inside a gutted red brick building. But a white arrow and the word “STUDIO” were painted on the side, which seems a likely film touch.
There is no guarantee either building will be used for anything other than exterior shots; interiors are planned at the 31st Street Studios in the Strip District. Details from Netflix publicity were not immediately available.
Tony Award winners George C. Wolfe will direct the film, with Ruben Santiago-Hudson adapting and Denzel Washington producing. Viola Davis, who won an Oscar for “Fences,” and Chadwick Boseman are set to star.
The play by Wilson, his first to make it to Broadway, focuses first on the band members hired to play a recording session for Ma Rainey, and then Rainey herself, the singer known as the Mother of the Blues who recorded the song “Black Bottom” in 1927.
Sharon Eberson contributed to this report. Maria Sciullo: msciullo@post-gazette.com or @MariaSciulloPG.
First Published: July 1, 2019, 7:43 p.m.
