https://blackgirlnerds.com/august-wilsons-play-ma-raineys-black-bottom-coming-to-netflix/

The award-winning play from the illustrious August Wilson Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom will be adapted into a feature film and air on Netflix.

The film stars Viola Davis , Chadwick Boseman, Glynn Turman, Colman Domingo and Michael Potts. Multiple Tony Award and DGA Award-winner George C. Wolfe (Lackawanna Blues, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks) will direct the film.

Writer Ruben Santiago-Hudson will adapt the script based on the award-winning play.

Denzel Washington will team up with Viola Davis again on yet another August Wilson play and will produce the film as well as Academy Award Nominee Todd Black and Dany Wolf. Jazz legend Branford Marsalis is composing the music.

The film tells the story of when Ma Rainey, the “Queen of the Blues,” makes a record in a studio in Chicago, 1927, and tensions boil between her, her white agent and producer, and bandmates.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom opened at Broadway’s Cort Theatre in October 1984, playing 276 performances before closing in June 1985. Featuring direction by Lloyd Richards, the play cast Theresa Merritt in the title role. The remainder of the company featured John Carpenter, Lou Criscuolo, Scott Davenport-Richards, Charles S. Dutton, Leonard Jackson, Robert Judd, Christopher Loomis, Aleta Mitchell, and Joe Senaca. Nominated for a Tony Award, Ma Rainey’s won the 1984 New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play was revived in February 2003 starring Whoopi Goldberg and Charles S. Dutton.

Filming will begin next month in Pittsburgh.