A new production of August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean” will open on schedule Aug. 24, but challenges at the site have changed plans for preview performances.
There now will be open rehearsals Aug. 16-19, and the first preview requiring ticket purchase will be Aug. 23. Those who purchased tickets for other previews can exchange them for another performance.
Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, into its second turn through Wilson’s American Century Cycle, took the ambitious route of presenting “Gem” on the address prescribed in the play: 1839 Wylie Ave. in the Hill District.
That address is an empty hillside lot beside Nazareth Baptist Church at 1845 and behind the Jeron X. Grayson Community Center, which faces Enoch Street.
“The challenges of building a set, seating bank and other safety precautions on a hillside” has taken longer than anticipated, said Pittsburgh Playwrights artistic director Mark Southers.
“There was a lot of brick and concrete under the grass,” he said. “We’ve gotten past that, but it put us a week behind.”
It is possible they are finding the remains of St. Brigid’s Church, which Wilson attended as a child and was at 1833 Wylie before being demolished in the early 1960s. The choice of address as the home of the 285-year-old character Aunt Ester, the sage of the Hill who is mentioned in but unseen in other Wilson plays, was linked to the Underground Railroad in an essay by Phylicia Rashad, the Tony Award-winning actress who played Aunt Ester on Broadway . 1839 was the first year the path from slavery in the South to freedom in the North was mentioned in publications.
While construction continues, the “Gem” cast has been rehearsing at Southers’ Hill District home, and they got a surprise visitor on Saturday: Oscar-winning actor-director Denzel Washington, who is in town as producer of the Netflix movie “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”
Washington, who has taken time during filming to check in on the August Wilson House, stopped by the Wylie Avenue site, just a few blocks from where Wilson grew up on Bedford Avenue. When he was told “Gem” rehearsals were going on a few blocks away, he visited Southers’ home, mingled with his family and can be seen in Facebook posts filming the cast.
Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. Twitter: @SEberson_pg. Sign up for the PG performing arts newsletter Behind the Curtain at Newsletter Preferences.
First Published: August 12, 2019, 4:09 p.m.
