Kandi Burruss Producing Her Fifth Broadway Play

Kandi Burruss has joined the production team for the Broadway revival of August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," starring Taraji P. Henson and Cedric the Entertainer and directed by Debbie Allen...

From The Playbill

Grammy winner and Tony and Emmy nominee Kandi Burruss has joined the producing team—led by Brian Anthony Moreland—for the forthcoming Broadway revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.

As previously reported, Oscar, Tony, and Emmy nominee Taraji P. Henson and six-time NAACP Image Award winner Cedric “The Entertainer” will star in the Broadway revival of the Wilson classic next year. Directed by Golden Globe and four-time Emmy winner Debbie Allen, Joe Turner's Come and Gone will open in spring 2026 at a Shubert theatre to be announced. Additional casting and creative team members will be announced at a later date.

Burruss previously collaborated with Moreland on Othello, starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal; the recent revival of The Wiz; the Tony-nominated revival of The Piano Lesson; and Thoughts of a Colored Man.

Henson, who was Tony-nominated as a producer of Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, will be making her Broadway performing debut. Cedric “The Entertainer” will be returning to Broadway after making his debut in 2008 in American Buffalo. They will portray wife and husband Bertha Holly and Seth Holly, respectively.

Set in 1911, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone takes place in a Pittsburgh boarding house run by the steady Seth and the open-hearted Bertha Holly—a refuge for Black travelers navigating the upheaval of the Great Migration. Among them is Herald Loomis, a man searching for his lost wife—and for the self he lost during seven years of illegal enslavement under Joe Turner.

The second play in Wilson’s American Century Cycle, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is a meditation on memory, community, and the enduring hope of freedom reclaimed.

The original production of Joe Turner's Come and Gone premiered on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in March 1988, running for 105 performances. Under the direction of Lloyd Richards, the cast included Delroy Lindo and future film star Angela Bassett. The production earned Tony nominations for Best Play, Best Director, Best Featured Actor, and took the Best Featured Actress Tony Award for L. Scott Caldwell.