August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone

Full Length Play, Drama / 6m, 5f

"Gives haunting voice to the souls of the American dispossessed." - The New York Times

August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone

Cast Size
6m, 5f
Subgenre
Period
Target Audience
- Adult

Additional Info

Set in a black boarding house in Pittsburgh in 1911, this drama by the author of The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, and Fences is an installment in the author’s series chronicling black life in each decade of this century. Each denizen of the boarding house has a different relationship to a past of slavery, as well as to the urban present. They include the proprietors, an eccentric clairvoyant with a penchant for old country voodoo, a young homeboy up from the South, and a mysterious stranger who is searching for his wife.

Accolades

August Wilson is the recipient of the 1986 Whiting Award for Drama

Reviews

REVIEWS

"Gives haunting voice to the souls of the American dispossessed." - The New York Times

"It is Wilson's epic vision, power and poetic sense that lift Joe Turner to strange and compelling heights." - New York Daily News

"A lovely, moving play." - New York Post

Considerations

Performing Groups

College Theatre / Student
Community Theatre
Professional Theatre

License details

Minimum Fee: $125 per performance

Production

Details

Time Period: 1910s / WWI
Setting: August, 1911. Pittsburgh.

Casting

6m, 5f

SETH HOLLY - owner of the boarding house
BERTHA HOLLY - his wife
BYNUM WALKER - a root worker
RUTHERFORD SELIG - a peddler
JEREMY FURLOW - a resident
HERALD LOOMIS - a resident
ZONIA LOOMIS - his daughter
MATTIE CAMPBELL - a resident
REUBEN MERCER - a boy who lives next door
MOLLY CUNNIGHAM - a resident
MARTHA LOOMIS - Herald Loomis' wife

See all +

Cast Attributes

Role(s) for Black Actor(s)
Multicultural casting

Resources

Scripts

Authors

August Wilson

August Wilson (April 27, 1945-October 2, 2005) authored

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Joe Turner's Come and Gone was first presented at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut on April 29, 1986. Directed by Lloyd Richards.

August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone

August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone