Boy Willie is an ambitious, loud, and stubborn 30-year-old man who has traveled north from Mississippi. He is fiercely determined to achieve his version of the American Dream by purchasing the land his ancestors once worked as enslaved laborers. To fund this purchase, he intends to sell his family's intricately carved, heavily contested heirloom piano. He dismisses the spiritual and emotional significance of the piano, focusing entirely on its financial utility and his own vision of justice.

Berniece is a 35-year-old widow who lives upstairs in her uncle's Pittsburgh home with her young daughter. Still mourning the death of her husband three years prior, she is fiercely protective of her family's heirloom piano, which was carved by her great-grandfather and polished with her mother's blood and tears. She refuses to sell the instrument but is also too afraid of its spiritual weight to play it, choosing instead to shield her daughter from their painful family history.

Doaker is a 47-year-old retired railroad laborer who now works as a cook on the railway. He lives on the first floor of the Pittsburgh home he shares with Berniece and Maretha. Having spent decades traveling along the tracks, he has grown tired of constant movement and prefers a settled, predictable life. He functions as the family's historian, recounting the dark origins of the piano while striving to remain neutral in the fierce conflict between his niece and nephew.

The oppressive supernatural presence of a recently deceased white man from Mississippi whose family originally owned the Charles family during slavery. After dying suddenly by falling into a well, his spirit travels to Pittsburgh to haunt the Charles household. His presence creates intense fear and disruption, seeming heavily tied to the family's heirloom piano.

Lymon is a 29-year-old man who travels north with Boy Willie to escape the oppressive, unpaid labor systems of the South. After a run-in with the law in Mississippi left him legally bound to work for a white landowner without pay, he sees Pittsburgh as a place to start fresh. Unlike Boy Willie, Lymon has no desire to return to farming; he simply wants to find steady work, buy nice clothes, and meet women.

Wining Boy is Doaker's 56-year-old older brother and a former professional musician. He lives as a restless wanderer, moving from place to place and only returning to his family when he runs out of funds. Though he speaks grandly of his past recording career, he eventually abandoned the piano because he felt burdened by the expectations placed upon him as a musician. He relies on drinking to cope with the sorrow of a rootless life.

Avery is a 38-year-old man who migrated from Mississippi to Pittsburgh and now works as an elevator operator. After experiencing a religious vision in a trainyard, he felt called to become a Christian preacher and is currently applying for loans to start his own church. He represents a clean-cut, law-abiding approach to life, seeking legitimacy through mainstream religion and traditional marriage.

Maretha is Berniece's 11-year-old daughter. She takes formal piano lessons and relies on sheet music, representing her mother's desire for her to attain middle-class respectability. Kept in the dark about the blood and violence attached to the family piano, she is nevertheless sensitive to the spiritual disturbances in the house.

Grace is a woman from Pittsburgh whom Boy Willie meets at a local bar. Independent and direct, she leaves the Charles household the moment she realizes she is not welcome by Berniece. She later catches the romantic attention of Lymon and proves highly sensitive to the tense, supernatural atmosphere of the house.

Berniece's late husband, who was killed three years prior during a shootout with the police in Mississippi. Though deceased before the events of the play, his death heavily influences the present conflict. He was caught moving stolen wood with Boy Willie and Lymon, an incident that fractured the relationship between his widow and her brother.