Gem of the Ocean

Set in 1904 Pittsburgh, Gem of the Ocean is the play that begins August Wilson's ten-play cycle dramatizing the African American experience during the twentieth century - a series that includes the plays Fences and The Piano Lesson. Aunt Ester, the drama's 285-year-old fiery matriarch, welcomes into her Hill District home Solly Two Kings, who was born into slavery and scouted for the Union Army, and Citizen Barlow, a young man from Alabama searching for a new life.