Wilson - Joe Turners Come and Gone

A PLUME BOOK

JOE TURNERS COME AND GONE

AUGUST WILSON is one of Americas leading playwrights, whose work has been acclaimed as among the finest of the American theater. His first play, Ma Raineys Black Bottom, won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best new play. His second play, Fences, won numerous awards, including the Tony Award, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. His third play, Joe Turners Come and Gone, also was best play of the year by the New York Drama Critics Circle. The Piano Lesson (1990) won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. August Wilson passed away in 2005.

Praise for Joe Turners Come and Gone

As rich in religious feeling as in historical detail, Joe Turner is at once a teeming canvas of black America and a spiritual allegory with a Melville whammy.... Joe Turner is flecked with hypnotic storytelling soliloquies as grittily redolent of itinerant America as those in The Iceman Cometh.

Frank Rich, The New York Times

Joe Turners Come and Gone is one of the best American plays of the decade.... He takes us through joy and disaster, hatred and love; he pulls few punches and in the end he has contributed not only to the stature of American playwrighting but to our understanding of our society. A rich, rewarding play, that rare work that entertains while it teaches.

The Providence Journal

A LSO BY A UGUST W ILSON

P UBLISHED BY P LUME

Fences

Ma Raineys Black Bottom

The Piano Lesson

Seven Guitars

Two Trains Running

PLUME

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First Printing, October 1988

Copyright 1988 by August Wilson

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All rights whatsoever in this playincluding stock and amateur rights in the USAare strictly reserved and application for performance, etc., should be made before rehearsal to the Estate of August Wilson, c/o Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison, 1285 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York, 10019, Attention: John Breglio. No performance may be given unless a license has been obtained.

REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Wilson, August

Joe Turners come and gone.

I. Title

PS3573.145677J64 1988 812.54

ISBN 978-0-593-08760-2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Version_1

For my daughter,
Sakina Ansari,
with love and gratitude
for her understanding

SETH HOLLY owner of the boardinghouse

BERTHA HOLLY his wife

BYNUM WALKER a rootworker

RUTHERFORD SELIG a peddler

JEREMY FURLOW a resident

HERALD LOOMIS a resident

ZONIA LOOMIS his daughter

MATTIE CAMPBELL a resident

REUBEN SCOTT boy who lives next door

MOLLY CUNNINGHAM a resident

MARTHA LOOMIS Herald Loomiss wife

Joe Turners Come and Gone was initially presented as a staged reading at the Eugene ONeill Theater Centers 1984 National Playwrights Conference.

Joe Turners Come and Gone opened on April 29, 1986 at the Yale Repertory Theatre, Lloyd Richards, Artistic Director, Benjamin Mordecai, Managing Director, in New Haven, Connecticut, with the following cast:

Director: Lloyd Richards

Set Design: Scott Bradley

Costume Design: Pamela Peterson

Lighting Design: Michael Gianitti

Musical Direction: Dwight Andrews

Sound Design: Matthew Wiener

Production Stage Manager: Margaret Adair

Stage Manager: Ethan Ruber

Casting: Meg Simon/Fran Kumin

The Yale Repertory Theatre production of Joe Turners Come and Gone opened on October 2, 1987 at the Arena Stage, Zelda Fichandler, Producing Director, William Stewart, Managing Director, Douglas C. Wager, Associate Producing Director, in Washington, D.C., with the following cast:

Director: Lloyd Richards

Set Design: Scott Bradley

Costume Design: Pamela Peterson

Lighting Design: Michael Gianitti

Musical Direction: Dwight Andrews

Stage Manager: Karen L. Carpenter

Casting Consultants: Meg Simon/Fran Kumin

Joe Turners Come and Gone opened on March 26, 1988, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway in New York City, with the following cast: