Preview
Production Season
Spring 2018
Dates of Performance
Feb. 1-3 | 7:30 P.M. Feb. 4 | 1 P.M.
Production Staff
Written by August Wilson. Directed by Guest Artist Kathryn Bentley. Artistic Director, Black Theatre Workshop, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Recommended Citation
Theatre, DePauw, "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" (2018). Past DePauw Theatre Seasons. 58, Scholarly and Creative Work from DePauw University.
https://scholarship.depauw.edu/commtheatre_past/58
Keywords
undergraduate theatre
Play Summary
August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone is set in a Pittsburgh boarding house in 1911. Owners Seth and Bertha Holly play host to a makeshift family of people who come to stay, some for days, some longer, during the Great Migration of the 1910s when descendants of former slaves moved in large numbers from the South toward the industrial cities of the North, seeking new jobs, new lives and new beginnings. Among those on the move are Herald Loomis and his young daughter, Zonia. Haunted by the past, they are headed wherever the road takes them in search of the long gone Martha, Herald's wife, and Zonia's mother. Herald arrives at the boarding house unsettled, dark and secretive. Seth Holly is suspicious and wants him out almost as soon as he arrives, but Bertha and the others see him differently, and by action and example, they help set him on the way to recovering his lost spirit and finding a new life. Directed by Guest Artist Kathryn Bentley, Director of the Black Theatre Workshop at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.