Review Roundup: JOE TURNER'S COME AND GONE Opens On Broadway

August Wilson is back on Broadway with Taraji P. Henson and Cedric “The Entertainer” and more in a new production of Joe Turner's Come and Gone. The critics have rendered their verdict. See what they're saying in our review roundup!

Set in Pittsburgh in 1911 during a pivotal era of migration and transformation, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone centers on Seth and Bertha Holly (Cedric and Henson) who run a warm, orderly boardinghouse for those navigating uncertain paths. But when a mysterious man named Herald Loomis (Boone) arrives with his young daughter, the stillness of the house begins to shift. 

Joe Turner's Come and Gone also stars Ruben Santiago-Hudson as ‘Bynum Walker,’ Joshua Boone as ‘Herald Loomis,’ Maya Boyd as ‘Molly Cunningham,’ Savannah Commodore and Dominique Skye Turner sharing the role of ‘Zonia Loomis,’ Abigail Onwunali as ‘Martha Loomis,’ Bradley Stryker as ‘Rutherford Selig,’ Tripp Taylor as ‘Jeremy Furlow,’ Christopher Woodley and Jackson Edward Davis sharing the role of ‘Reuben Scott,’ and Nimene Sierra Wureh as ‘Mattie Campbell.’ Understudies for the production are Jasmine Batchelor, Rosalyn Coleman, Thomas Michael Hammond, Cayden McCoy, and Kevyn Morrow.

The production is directed by Golden Globe Award, four-time Emmy Award winner and recipient of the 2026 Academy Honorary Award, Debbie Allen. 

Helen Shaw, The New York Times: The show makes its own journey of return in Debbie Allen’s revival, which opened on Saturday at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, nearly four decades after its Broadway premiere at the same theater, in 1988. This production doesn’t always travel smoothly — some of Allen’s staging elements war with one another. A few younger members of the ensemble, crucial to the play’s novelistic ebb and flow, are also still finding their footing. But Wilson’s language rushes past and over every barrier.

Sara Holdren, Vulture : You can keep going — Wilson’s poetry is richly layered, a dramaturgy of abundant significance. The roots are deep, the canopy wide, and the song in the leaves, especially in the hands of an ensemble like this one, always worth rehearing.

Raven Snook, Time Out New York: There are many wonderful exchanges as these seekers clash and sometimes connect. Even the small talk feels epic, and it all leads up to a searing climax that I recalled vividly from the last Broadway revival in 2009. It's just as powerful in this production: a stunning depiction of reconciliation, reckoning and release that makes Joe Turner impossible to shake.

Thom Geier, Culture Sauce: Director Debbie Allen’s starry new revival, headlined by Cedric the Entertainer and Taraji P. Henson as the proprietors of the boarding house where the action takes place, is an admirable production that hits the major dramatic notes and occasionally hints at the sublime transcendence of the material. The chief draw here is Ruben Santiago-Hudson, who brings grounded authority to the role of “conjure man” Bynum Walker — a practitioner of folk magic whose particular gift is binding people together.

Juan A. Ramirez, The Guardian: Allen’s staging doesn’t match the fine work she’s drawn from her actors, who are mostly confined to the kitchen table far stage left. This leaves the rest of the house – a cozy living room and a stairway that seems to climb toward heaven – frustratingly unexplored. (The set design, by longtime Wilson collaborator David Gallo, does handsomely capture the play’s twilight zone; its well-appointed rooms against a black backdrop that reveals a terrifying and exciting industrial world.)

Aramide Timubu, Variety: Just as it did when it first debuted on Broadway in 1989, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” remains timeless. Though she doesn’t have much to do, Henson and the rest of the cast, including the younger actors, are exceptional. Bursting with heart and humor, the production showcases all of the intricacies and beauty of Black American life, the never-ending costs of slavery, racism and discrimination and how Black people flourish and move forward despite it all.

Austin Fimmano, New York Theatre Guide: Inhabited by this talented ensemble, it feels like each one of these characters could step off the stage into real life with the snap of a finger. But none more so than Ruben Santiago-Hudson as Bynum Walker, the anchor of the narrative. The play opens with Seth and Holly discussing his odd ways behind his back, and at first he appears to be a loony old man. But as the audience gets to know him, the more it seems that Bynum is the only character who has it all figured out. Santiago-Hudson’s performance is real, grounded, and a true joy to experience. And it all contributes to the tapestry of this production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone: rich, complex, deliberately unhurried (though perhaps a tad too long), and full of deeply layered performances.

Melissa Rose Bernardo, New York Stage Review: It’s only fitting that Ruben Santiago-Hudson is playing a conjurer in the current revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. What he’s doing on stage at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre (also home to original 1988 Broadway production) is nothing short of magical.

Frank Scheck, New York Stage Review: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone has landed on Broadway for the third time since its 1989 New York City premiere. A critical success but commercial failure upon its original Broadway production, August Wilson’s rich and complex play has received a generally laudable revival, directed by Debbie Allen and featuring a superb cast, that captures the play’s emotional and stylistic nuances even while suffering from occasional missteps.

Chris Jones, The New York Daily News: Allen’s production starts gently, as does the play, and it honors the other side of Wilson, which is to write about how Black people found spaces, even in 1911, for humor and community with each other. That’s manifest fabulously well here by Cedric and Santiago-Hudson, with Boyd and Wureh exploring the fate of young women adrift in this landscape and relying on men for an anchor, a rooting that too often proved elusive.

Greg Evans, Deadline: Rare is the Broadway season that hasn’t been bettered by an August Wilson revival, and this very busy spring is no exception. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, lovingly and astutely directed by Debbie Allen with a no-weak-link cast headed by Taraji P. Henson (in a superb Broadway debut), Cedric The Entertainer and Ruben Santiago-Hudson, is nothing less than a full-on reminder of Wilson’s singular genius for blending naturalism with more-things-in-heaven-and-earth marvels.

Joey Sims, Theatrely: Allen and her designers only engage visually with these apparitions when the text absolutely forces it. The lighting, by Stacey Derosier, is resolutely naturalistic except at each act’s conclusion, when it goes haywire a bit too abruptly. David Gallo’s set has nothing non-literal to offer, attractive as it is. Allen instead leans heavily on musical underscoring by Steve Bargonetti—but this mostly creeps in to heavy-handily underline or highlight dramatic moments.

Robert Hofler, The Wrap: This “Joe Turner” production is one of the season’s best. Loomis’ entrance and other memorable moments owe much to David Gallo’s set, Paul Tazewell’s costume, Stacey Derosier’s lighting and Steve Bargonetti’s original music.

Johnny Oleksinki, The New York Post: That is the unshakable feeling at the revival of his “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” that opened Saturday night at the Barrymore Theatre. You’re never less than pleased you’ve come, and yet you’re constantly aware that something’s gone. What thrives in director Debbie Allen’s production of one of the writer’s best works is the drama’s musical conversationality and boisterous spirit. How could it not when the 1911 Pittsburgh boarding house it’s set in is run by Cedric the Entertainer?

Brian Scott Lipton, Cititour: Even in a less-than-perfect production, one shouldn’t let “Joe Turner” come and go without seeing it. Wilson is one of the 20th Century’s most important dramatists and his plays, whenever they are on stage, demand we take notice.

Ross, Front Mezz Junkies: Now, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone returns to Broadway, beginning previews March 30 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Directed by Debbie Allen (Broadway’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), the production arrives with a sense of quiet anticipation that feels different from the usual Broadway build. This is not a show that announces itself loudly. It settles in and waits for you to come closer.

Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater: The play gets its title from a century-old blues song by WC Handy, which is inspired by the true story of a man named Joe Turney. At the turn of the twentieth century, he would snatch Black men to work on a plantation, in effect turning them back into slaves. Joe Turney was the brother of the governor of Tennessee, a state that currently allows local officers to assist ICE in arresting people during routine traffic patrols. This second Broadway production of August Wilson’s 1988 play, in other words, is well-timed. It’s also well-cast.

Average Rating: 80.0%