Samuel L. Jackson headed to Broadway in 'Piano Lesson'

Samuel L. Jackson is about to move from the Marvel Universe to the Great White Way.

The actor, who plays Nick Fury in the "Avengers" franchise and other Marvel Cinematic Universe films, is set to star in a 16-week revival of August Wilson's drama "The Piano Lesson" at Broadway's St. James Theatre starting Sept. 19, the show's producers announced Tuesday. This will mark the actor's first time on Broadway since playing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in "The Mountaintop" in 2011.

The play is set in 1936 Pittsburgh and centers on the arguments between a brother and sister about what to do with the family piano, an heirloom carved with the faces of their ancestors. "The Piano Lesson" previously ran on Broadway from April 1990 to January 1991 and won the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Jackson, 73, has a strong connection to "The Piano Lesson": He appeared as Boy Willie in the original production that premiered at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1987. In the revival, he will star as Doaker Charles, uncle to the two battling siblings, to be played by John David Washington ("Tenet") and Danielle Brooks ("Orange Is the New Black"). Jackson's wife, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, will direct, becoming the first woman to helm a Wilson play on Broadway.

"The Piano Lesson" is part of Wilson’s American Century Cycle of 10 plays — each set during a different decade of the 20th century — chronicling the Black experience. The others are "Jitney," "Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom," "Fences," "Joe Turner’s Come and Gone," "Two Trains Running," "Seven Guitars," "King Hedley II," "Gem of the Ocean" and "Radio Golf."