Video: Cast of Joe Turner's Come and Gone Discuss Doing August Wilson's Favorite Play

Taraji P. Henson and Cedric the Entertainer lead the cast in the Broadway revival.

March 24, 2026 By Diep Tran, Jeffrey Vizcaíno

For many actors, doing an August Wilson play is a dream. But doing August Wilson's favorite play? That's a no-brainer. Says Cedric the Entertainer: "For August, [Joe Turner's Come and Gone is] one of his favorites ... When a playwright writes something and goes, 'I love this one,' you go, 'Why? Okay.'" Cedric is making his Broadway debut in the revival of Wilson's play, the second work in the playwright's Century Cycle which chronicles Black life in the 1900s.

Joe Turner's Come and Gone is set in 1911 Pittsburgh, at the boarding house of Seth Holly (Cedric) and his wife Bertha (played by Taraji P. Henson). The house welcomes travelers, many of whom are formerly enslaved people from the South who move north for a better life, during the Great Migration. One of the migrants is Herald Loomis, played by Joshua Boone, who endured seven years of labor under a cruel man named Joe Turner. Watch the video above as the cast and director Debbie Allen discuss with Playbill's Jeffrey Vizcaíno their love for Wilson's work.

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Audiences are excited for this revival. Even before it began previews March 30, the show announced it was extending by a week to July 19 at the Barrymore Theatre. When asked what she hopes audiences take away from Joe Turner, Henson responds, "I hope they see themselves in it. I hope they see the humanity in these people just trying to rediscover who they are. I hope people understand we all have a song to sing, we all have it in us. If you find your song and you have the will to want to sing it out loud, you'll save yourself and you'll save other people."