Kandi Burruss Joins Production Of August Wilson Revival Starring Taraji P. Henson And Cedric The Entertainer

Kandi Burruss has joined the production team for the upcoming Broadway revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, starring Taraji P. Henson and Cedric “The Entertainer.”

Led by Brian Anthony Moreland, the Grammy and Tony Award-winning actress, singer, and songwriter, joins Golden Globe and four-time Emmy winner Debbie Allen, who will direct the stage play slated to open in Spring 2026, Playbill reports. Burruss’s addition to the Moreland-led production comes as no surprise, as the two have previously collaborated on several major Broadway projects, including Othello, starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, the recent revival of The Wiz, the Tony-nominated The Piano Lesson, and Thoughts of a Colored Man.

“I’m thrilled to be joining the producing team of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, which will mark my fifth Broadway show,” Burruss said in a statement. “Eternal gratitude to the team as I look forward to being a part of this journey and can’t wait for people to witness the greatness that is Taraji P. Henson and Cedric ‘The Entertainer’ on the Broadway stage.”

The play will mark the Broadway performing debut for Henson, an Emmy-nominated actress and Tony-nominated producer, who will star alongside Cedric “The Entertainer,” who will be making his Broadway return after his 2008 debut in American Buffalo. The two screen stars will portray married couple Bertha and Seth Holly.

Set in 1911, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone unfolds in a Pittsburgh boarding house run by the steadfast Seth and warm-hearted Bertha. Together, they operate their boarding house as a haven for Black travelers navigating the challenges 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.”

Written by August Wilson around 1984 and premiering in 1986, the play is the second installment in Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, a series of 10 plays each exploring a different decade of 20th-century African American life in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

“We are truly honored to return to August Wilson’s legacy,” Moreland said in an earlier statement. “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is Wilson’s seminal masterpiece—an unflinching exploration of pain, identity, and hope. With Debbie Allen’s visionary direction and this extraordinary cast, the entire company will present a performance that resonates deeply and lingers in the hearts and minds of all who experience it.”

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