Gem of the Ocean

Pittsburgh, 1904—the eve of Aunt Esther's 287th birthday.   A former slave, Aunt Esther is a keeper of tradition and a cleanser of souls. When Citizen Barlow comes to her home seeking asylum and redemption, she sets him off on a poetic and spiritual journey to find the City of Bones at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, a repository of the memory and tragedy of the Middle Passage.  Gem of the Ocean is the ninth play in Wilson’s ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle that chronicles a century of African American life. Directed by Akin' Babatunde', Theodore U. Horger ’61 Artist-in-Residence for the Performing and Visual Arts.