Joe Turner May Be Gone—But Debbie Allen Is Just Getting Started

Joe Turner may be long gone, but Debbie Allen is very much back in the building. The stage and screen icon returns to Broadway this season at the helm of one of August Wilson's masterpieces, Joe Turner's Come and Gone. It's a play to which Debbie feels a special connection.

"I love the language of this play. I love the storytelling, the characters," she told BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge during a break from rehearsals. "August was very clear that he was never trying to be a historian, but he was creating fictional characters that could have existed in this circumstance. He's done it brilliantly. He knows how each character speaks, and they all speak differently, but they speak in that kind of  rhythmic way that he has... his poetry.

"And emotionally, he takes us on a journey that not only these characters find themselves,  but anyone as an audience will be thinking about finding themselves too."

Allen hits the rehearsal room with an all-star cast, led by Taraji P. Henson and Cedric “The Entertainer." Her process with her cast is all about exploration.

"I worked with Jerome Robbins when I played Anita in West Side Story... and Jerome Robbins would change my performance every week. He would tell me, 'Do it like this!'  I looked at it as not just an exercise, but he was building the options of who [Anita] was and  peeling the onion, which is what I call it [for my cast now]. We are peeling this onion. Exploration in the rehearsal process is a must for me."

Joe Turner's Come and Gone will open at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on March 27, 2026.