Taraji P. Henson is headed to Broadway. The Golden Globe winner and Oscar-nominated actor will make her Broadway debut in a new revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, set to open in Spring 2026. Joining her is six-time NAACP Image Award winner Cedric the Entertainer, who returns to the stage for the first time since 2008.
The revival will be directed by Debbie Allen, a two-time Tony nominee and Emmy-winning artist who also helmed the 2008 Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Allen is having a standout year—she was recently named one of the 2025 Honorary Oscar recipients by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was announced as the director and choreographer of the upcoming Broadway-bound Polly: The Musical.
In Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Henson and Cedric will portray Bertha and Seth Holly, a couple who run a boarding house in Pittsburgh in 1911 during the Great Migration. The story centers on Herald Loomis, a man searching for his wife and the identity he lost during seven years of illegal enslavement under the titular Joe Turner. As Loomis’s past resurfaces, so too does a chorus of buried truths, communal pain, and spiritual reckoning that ripple through everyone in the home.
Produced by Brian Anthony Moreland, the play will premiere at a Shubert theater to be announced. This marks Moreland’s latest return to Wilson’s work following the record-breaking revivals of The Piano Lesson and Othello, both of which featured powerhouse casts including Samuel L. Jackson, Danielle Brooks, and Denzel Washington.
“Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is Wilson’s seminal masterpiece—an unflinching exploration of pain, identity, and hope,” said Moreland in a statement. “With Debbie Allen’s visionary direction and this extraordinary cast, the entire company will present a performance that resonates deeply and lingers in the hearts and minds of all who experience it.”
A graduate of Howard University, Henson studied theater before finding success in television (Empire) and film (The Color Purple, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). Though this is her acting debut on Broadway, she previously served as a producer on Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.
Cedric’s return marks his first Broadway appearance since American Buffalo in 2008. Though widely known for his comedic work, including his starring role on CBS’ The Neighborhood, his casting as Seth Holly signals a deeper dramatic turn.
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is the second installment in Wilson’s American Century Cycle, a groundbreaking series of ten plays chronicling Black life across the 20th century. Originally premiering on Broadway in 1988, the drama is considered one of Wilson’s most spiritual and lyrically rich works. As described by The New York Times, it is “a drama of indisputable greatness.”
Additional casting will be announced in the coming months.