Seven Guitars

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Seven Guitars
Written by	August Wilson
Characters	Louise Canewell Red Carter Vera Hedley Floyd Barton Ruby
Date premiered	1995
Place premiered	Goodman Theatre Chicago, Illinois
Original language	English
Series	The American Century Cycle
Subject	an aspiring blues musician, a sick old man, three single women and the plight of African-American postwar urban poverty
Genre	Tragicomedy
Setting	1940s; The backyard of a boardinghouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Seven Guitars is a 1995 play by American playwright August Wilson. It focuses on seven African-American characters in the year 1948. The play begins and ends after the funeral of one of the main characters, showing events leading to the funeral in flashbacks. Seven Guitars represents the 1940s entry in Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle, a decade-by-decade anthology of African-American life in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the twentieth century; Wilson would revisit the stories of some of these characters in King Hedley II, set in the 1980s.

Plot synopsis[]

Just released from jail, Blues singer Floyd "Schoolboy" Barton is asked to sign a record deal after a song he recorded months before becomes an unexpected hit.^[1] After a year of trials and tribulations, Floyd is ready to right the past year's wrongs and return to Chicago with a new understanding of what's important in his life. Unfortunately his means of righting wrongs are inherently flawed.

The play's recurring theme is the African-American male's fight for his own humanity, self-understanding and self-acceptance in the face of personal and societal ills. The rooster is a recurring symbol of black manhood throughout the play, and provides a violent and shocking foreshadowing effect when Hedley delivers a fiery monologue and ritualistically slaughters one in front of the other characters.

Awards and nominations[]

Awards

• 1996 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play

Nominations

• 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
• 1996 Drama Desk Award for Best Play
• 1996 Tony Award for Best Play

References[]

• Wilson, August (1996). Seven Guitars (First ed.). New York: Samuel French. ISBN 0-573-69600-4.

External links[]

• Seven Guitars at the Internet Broadway Database