Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Written by	August Wilson
Date premiered	1984
Place premiered	Eugene O'Neill Theater Center Waterford, Connecticut
Original language	English
Series	Century Cycle
Subject	A blues group waits to get to work in the studio, and tempers flare.
Genre	Drama
Setting	Chicago, early 1927

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is a 1982 play – one of the ten-play Century Cycle by August Wilson – that chronicles the 20th-century African-American experience. The play is set in a recording studio in 1920s Chicago, and deals with issues of race, art, religion, and the historic exploitation of black recording artists by white producers.

The play's title comes from Ma Rainey's song of the same name, which refers to the Black Bottom dance. Rainey, whose life as a well-known blues-singer of the 1920s is an inspiration for the play, is also the titular character.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom was published in the early 1980s and premiered at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. Its Broadway debut at the Cort Theatre in 1984 won a New York Drama Critics' Circle award and garnered a Tony Award nomination for Best Play. In 2020, Wilson's play was adapted for film.