Seven Guitars

Seven Guitars is a 1995 play by American playwright August Wilson.

Seven Guitars represents the 1940s entry in Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle, a decade-by-decade anthology of African-American life in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the twentieth century; Wilson would revisit the stories of some of these characters in King Hedley II, set in the 1980s.

Just released from 90 days in jail, Blues singer Floyd "Schoolboy" Barton is asked to sign a record deal after a song he recorded months before becomes an unexpected hit.

The play's recurring theme is the African-American male's fight for his own humanity, self-understanding and self-acceptance in the face of personal and societal ills.

The rooster is a recurring symbol of black manhood throughout the play, and provides a violent and shocking foreshadowing effect when Hedley delivers a fiery monologue and ritualistically slaughters one in front of the other characters.