In August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “The Piano Lesson,” now being staged by Performance Network Theatre, supernatural elements play a role.

And because a handful of actors, for various reasons (pregnancy, a long-term contract offer from a theater in another state, etc.), had to drop out of the Network’s production after being cast in August, director Tim Rhoze began to wonder if the supernatural was involved in more than just Wilson’s words.

“Every time I’d get a call from the theater, and I’d say, ‘Who now?’” Rhoze joked during a phone interview, while commuting from his current home base in Chicago. “It’s been an unusual challenge in that respect. But fortunately, other actors were available to audition, … and we were able to really get who we wanted. So I don’t think we have lost anything.”

Set in 1930s Pittsburgh, “Lesson” primarily focuses on a family struggle between a brother and sister. The brother wants to sell the family’s old piano, which has carvings of their slave ancestors, and buy land with the money; while the sister wants to maintain and keep this symbol of personal history within the family.

“It’s certainly one of (Wilson’s) more challenging pieces because of some of the elements involved,” said Rhoze, who previously directed Wilson’s “Fences” at PNT.

One of those elements is the play’s incorporation of music, which Rhoze wanted his actors to actually perform on the piano, instead of having music piped in through a speaker. Four different actors will play during each performance, and while one actor had multiple years of training, one began lessons last year, while the other two are working to make sure they can simply play what they need to play.

“The music is important because the piano’s important, and (Wilson’s) language has a musicality to it,” said Rhoze. “ … It’s almost operatic.”

Part of that musicality arises from the long speeches Wilson puts in the mouths of his characters, and according to Rhoze, these lengthy passages put great demands not only on the actors charged with speaking them, but on those who must listen and react.

“That requires a focus that is acquired over time in an actor’s career,” said Rhoze. “It’s easy to tune out. An undisciplined actor would sit there, and in their head, what they hear is, ‘Blah blah blah, waiting for my line, blah blah blah.’ And yet, an experienced actor … is still active within the scene, even though there may be … two pages when they’re on the set, and they don’t have a single line. I equate it to basketball. Just because you don’t have the ball in your hand doesn’t mean you get to stop playing. You continue. So that’s the kind of focus and concentration that’s required.”

“Lesson” is part of Wilson’s Century Cycle (also referred to as the Pittsburgh Cycle) of 10 plays, in which the playwright wrote one play set in each decade of the 20th century, all focusing on African Americans in Pittsburgh. (Wilson won a Pulitzer Prize for two plays in the Cycle: “Fences” and “Lesson.”)

Rhoze said that tackling Wilson’s work can be daunting, in the same way that Shakespeare can be intimidating, but the rewards are huge. “August Wilson has the ability, particularly in his earlier pieces, to tap into that part of our souls that causes us to be uncomfortable, to be joyful, and everything in between.”