Folio Fiction Discussion Group: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (A Play)

Folio's Fiction book discussion group features a list of classic fiction, curated and led by Folio Librarian Lillian Dabney.

This month features  Ma Rainey's Black Bottom: A Play by August Willson. The time is 1927. The place is a run-down recording studio in Chicago. Ma Rainey, the legendary blues singer is due to arrive with her entourage to cut new sides of old favorites. Waiting for her are her black musician sidemen, the white owner of the record company, and her white manager. What goes down in the session to come is more than music. It is a riveting portrayal of black rage...of racism, of the self hate that racism breeds, and of racial expression.

August Wilson was a major American playwright whose work has been consistently acclaimed as among the finest of the American theater. His first play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for best new play of 1984-85. His second play, Fences, won numerous awards for best play of the year, 1987, including the Tony Award, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. Joe Turner's Come and Gone, his third play, was voted best play of 1987-1988 by the New York Drama Critics' Circle. In 1990, Wilson was awarded his second Pulitzer Prize for The Piano Lesson. He died in 2005.