Gem of the Ocean is a full-length drama by August Wilson. The penultimate entry in August Wilson's 10-play cycle on African-American life in Pittsburgh is set in 1904. Aunt Ester, a 285-year-old former slave, takes wandering fugitive Citizen Barlow into her home and guides him on a mystical journey toward healing his guilt over the crime he has committed.

Gem of the Ocean is the play that begins it all. Set in 1904 Pittsburgh, it is chronologically the first work in August Wilson's decade-by-decade cycle dramatizing the African American experience during the twentieth century — an unprecedented series that includes the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays Fences and The Piano Lesson. Aunt Esther, the drama's 287-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. Gem of the Ocean is the ninth work in August Wilson's ten-play cycle that has recorded the American Black experience and helped to define generations.

Gem of the Ocean premiered in 2003 at the Goodman Theare in Chicago, Illinois. The Broadway run starred Tony Award winner Phylicia Rashad as Aunt Esther. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 2 female, 5 male

What people say:

"A swelling battle hymn of transporting beauty. Theatergoers who have followed August Wilson's career will find in Gem a touchstone for everything else he has written." — The New York Times

"Slow-burning, powerfully spiritual drama." — Variety

"August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean is like a great and mighty ship riding the waves of history. With sails at full mast, blown by the winds of clarity and tireless resolve, it surges onward toward its charted destination, the port of right understanding." — Phylicia Rashad

About the Playwright:

August Wilson (1945-2005) was one of America's greatest playwrights. An American icon, he depicted the human condition like no other playwright of his time. His crowning achievement is The Pittsburgh Cycle, his series of ten plays depicting the comic and tragic aspects of the African-American experience in the twentieth century. All of them are set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District except for one, which is set in Chicago. The cycle is also known as his Century Cycle. Crafted over nearly 25 years, these works garnered August Wilson a myriad accolades, including eight New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards, a Tony Award and two Pulitzer Prizes.