Seven Guitars

Full Length, Tragic comedy

Characters: 4 male, 3 female

Exterior Set

The sixth in the author's decade by decade exploration of the black experience in America, two of which have won Pulitzer Prizes, Seven Guitars is part bawdy comedy, part dark elegy and part mystery. In the backyard of a Pittsburgh tenement in 1948, friends gather to mourn for a blues guitarist and singer who died just as his career was on the verge of taking off. The action that follows is a flashback to the busy week leading up to Floyd's sudden and unnatural death.

"Displays a narrative sweep and almost biblical richness of language and character.... Mr. Wilson writes so vividly that the play seems to have the narrative scope and depth of a novel."-The New York Times.

"Impressive ... with wild, untamed elements of symbolic fantasy, and the language ... is used with the specific riff like fluency and emotional impact of jazz."-New York Post.

Winner of the N. Y. Drama Critics Award for Best Play.