Joe turner's Come and Gone - Center Stage

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Contents Setting the Stage 3 Cast/Foreword 4 Call and Response 5 A Show of Hands 6 Seeing the Inconceivable 8 Staging a “Mistake” 10 Hot Biscuits and Coffee 11 The Blues Story of “Joe Turner” 13 Glossary 14 Bibliography 16 Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by August Wilson Derrick Sanders Director Neil Patel Scenic Designer The Next Stage Resource Guide is sponsored by In case of emergency (during performances only) 410.986.4080 Box Office Phone 410.332.0033 Box Office Fax 410.727.2522 Administration 410.986.4000 www.centerstage.org info@centerstage.org The Next Stage is published by: CENTERSTAGE Associates 700 North Calvert Street Baltimore, Maryland 21202 Editor Aaron Heinsman Contributors: Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Shannon M. Davis, Regina Pisasale, Dr. Sandra G. Shannon, Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson, Kathryn Van Winkle, Gavin Witt Art Direction/Design/Illustration Bill Geenen Design Jason Gembicki Advertising Sales Aaron Heinsman: 410.986.4016 CENTERSTAGE operates under an agreement between LORT and Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States. The Director and Choreographer are members of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Inc., an independent national labor union. Christine Pascual Costume Designer Thom Weaver Lighting Designer Ray Nardelli Sound Designer/Composer J. Allen Suddeth Fight Director Deena Burke Voice Consultant Kibibi Ajanku Juba Choreographer Faedra Chatard Carpenter Production Dramaturg Eli Dawson Casting Director Please turn off or silence all electronic devices. Sponsored by Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. With additional support from The William L. and Victorine Q. Adams Foundation and The Rodgers Family Fund Global Lead Management Consulting The scenic, costume, lighting, and sound designers in LORT theaters are represented by United Scenic Artists, Local USA-829 of the IATSE. CenterStage is a constituent of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the nonprofit professional theater, and is a member of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT), the national collective bargaining organization of professional regional theaters. CENTERSTAGE is funded by an operating grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency dedicated to cultivating a vibrant cultural community where the arts thrive. Season Media Sponsor
Set ting the STage Joe Turner’s Come and gone by Shannon M. Davis, New Media Manager Characters: Seth Holly, a boarding house owner Bertha Holly, his wife Bynum Walker, a conjure man and rootworker Jeremy Furlow, a young musician recently arrived from North Carolina Herald Loomis, a former prisoner on a chain gang Zonia Loomis, his eleven-year-old daughter Mattie Campbell, a young woman recently arrived from Texas Molly Cunningham, a young woman on her way to Cincinnati Rutherford Selig, a traveling tinker and People Finder Reuben Mercer, a young neighbor boy Martha Pentecost, a friend of the Hollys Setting: The Hollys’ boarding house in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, August 1911. Herald Loomis has lost something. Not only his wife, though he’s looking for her when he turns up at Seth Holly’s boarding house with his young daughter in tow. It’s obvious to everyone who meets Loomis that he’s a man diminished, but only conjure man Bynum Walker can name it: “Now I can look at you, Mr. Loomis, and see you a man who done forgot his song. Forgot how to sing it. A fellow forget that and he forget who he is.” That should come as no surprise after seven years unjustly imprisoned on a chain gang; but since his release, Loomis has been working doggedly to care for his daughter, Zonia, and track down Martha, the wife left behind when he was kidnapped. Loomis’ search goes deeper than the desire to rebuild his family: he’s a man without purpose, struggling to readjust to a world he was stolen from and to his uncertain place within it. His literal and figurative odysseys are the driving force behind Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, chronologically the second installment of August Wilson’s epic cycle. Loomis isn’t alone, however—the Hollys’ rooming house is bustling with the wayfarers of the Great Migration, as the children of new-found freedom travel North to opportunity. Their journeys intersect with Loomis’ as they form their own impromptu family. Guitar-playing country boy Jeremy romances heartbroken Mattie as well as cosmopolitan Molly. Bynum the rootworker uses his Binding Song to help bring lost people back together. Bertha Holly mothers them all from the kitchen, while her husband, Seth, keeps an eye on their comings and goings, supplementing his income by working metal for Rutherford Selig, a White peddler dabbling as a People Finder. But when Loomis—at his darkest and struggling to find his way—suffers a terrifying vision of the Middle Passage, it is only Bynum who is able to help guide him through. Bynum’s conviction that loss can be a gain—that Loomis’ search for his wife may lead him back to himself and his missing “song” of purpose—is the catalyst for Loomis’ transformation from a lost wanderer to someone who just may have the Secret of Life. Join our continuing engagement with August Wilson and the journey of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. This was the first Wilson play produced at CENTERSTAGE, illuminating our 1988–89 Season and featuring then- Baltimore School for the Arts student Jada Pinkett Smith. As with many of Wilson’s plays, Joe Turner has fast become a modern classic, and its central questions of identity, healing, and the meaning of family resonate as strongly as ever.• Next Stage: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone |
Page 1: Next Stage Resource Guide Joe turne
Page 5 and 6: Call and Response: Q&A with Product
Page 7 and 8: “[T]hat’s my workshed. I go out
Page 9 and 10: LOOMIS When they sink down they mad
Page 11 and 12: detached transients just up from th
Page 13 and 14: The Blues Story of “Joe Turner”
Page 15 and 16: strategically lured into gambling t

Joe turner's Come and Gone - Center Stage

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