Photo Preview of Joe Turner's 'Come and Gone' at Berkeley Rep

Renowned actor Delroy Lindo returns to Berkeley Repertory Theatre with the play that netted him a nomination for the Tony Award – but this time, he's in the director's chair. Following last year's triumph with Tanya Barfield's Blue Door, Lindo takes on August Wilson's African-American epic, Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Staged in the state-of-the-art Roda Theatre, this show begins previews on October 31, opens November 5, and closes December 14. Joe Turner is produced in association with the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, thanks to executive producers Wayne Jordan and Quinn Delaney and Felicia Woytak and Steve Rasmussen. BART and Wells Fargo are the season sponsors for Berkeley Rep's 41st year of fearless theatre.

"It's an honor to welcome Delroy back to our stage," says Tony Taccone, artistic director of Berkeley Rep, "and I am pleased to present August Wilson's work to our audience, a major voice which has been missing from our long tradition of multicultural theatre. This play was a landmark work in Delroy's career, and a landmark work for the American theatre. It asks important questions about race and identity, and I am confident Delroy can rediscover these resonances in his new role as its director."

"Joe Turner's Come and Gone is one of the great works of theatre," Lindo comments. "It's held a prominent and special place in my heart and life, since I first acted in it in 1986. Appearing on Broadway later, and being nominated for awards, was luxurious icing on the cake. I would have gone to the ends of the earth to act in this play. It was my destiny. It belongs at the very apex of my experiences, both as an actor and as a human being, and will always remain so. To say I'm profoundly grateful and moved doesn't adequately express how deeply I feel about revisiting the work as its director. As with Blue Door, I and the company hope to give Bay Area audiences an evening they'll long remember. And I thank Tony Taccone and Berkeley Rep for this opportunity."

"Joe Turner's Come and Gone is an intoxicatingly hopeful blend of history, mystery, myth, ribald humor, music, dance, and enduring faith," raves the Chicago Reader. Haunted by seven years on a chain gang, Herald Loomis appears in Pittsburgh to reunite his family. Surrounded by the vibrant tenants of a black boarding house, he fights for his soul and his song in the dawning days of a century without slavery. "Wilson gives haunting voice to the souls of the American dispossessed," declares the New York Times. "The clash between the American and the African shakes white and black theatergoers as violently as it has shaken the history we've all shared."

Before bringing Blue Door to Berkeley Rep, Delroy Lindo was named Best Director by the LA Weekly for staging Medal of Honor Rag. He performed on Broadway and in the national tour of Master Harold… and the Boys and netted nominations for the Tony and Drama Desk Awards for his Broadway portrayal of Herald Loomis in Joe Turner's Come and Gone. He also worked extensively off Broadway and in regional theatres throughout the U.S. and Canada. He played Walter Lee in A Raisin in the Sun at the Wilshire Theatre, winning the NAACP Image Award for Best Actor, and at The Kennedy Center, receiving a Helen Hayes Award nomination. Currently, he is depicting the title character in Agamemnon at the Getty Villa. Lindo is best known for extensive screen time in films such as The Cider House Rules, Clockers, The Core, Crooklyn, Domino, L'Exil du Roi Behanzin, Get Shorty, Gone in 60 Seconds, Heist, The Last Castle, A Life Less Ordinary, Malcolm X, The One, Ransom, Romeo Must Die, and Wondrous Oblivion. Most recently, he starred in the hit film This Christmas, also serving as an executive producer. On TV, he starred in the NBC series Kidnapped, The Exonerated on CourtTV (also featuring in the London stage production), and First Time Felon and Lackawanna Blues for HBO. Lindo played Clarence Thomas in Showtime's Peabody Award-winning Strange Justice, Arctic explorer Matthew Henson in TNT's Glory and Honor, Ricardo Thornton in Profoundly Normal on CBS, and baseball legend Satchel Paige in HBO's Soul of the Game. He also wrote, produced, directed, hosted, and co-edited documentaries featuring interviews with Spike Lee, Charles Burnett, and Joan Chen.

August Wilson (1945 – 2005) authored a ten-play cycle exploring the heritage and experience of African Americans, decade-by-decade, through the 20th century: Fences, Gem of the Ocean, Jitney, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, King Hedley II, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Radio Golf, Seven Guitars, and Two Trains Running. His plays have garnered numerous awards including two Pulitzer Prizes, the Tony Award for Best Play, two Drama Desk Awards, an Olivier Award, and eight prizes for Best Play from the New York Drama Critics Circle – including one for Joe Turner. They have been produced on Broadway, at theatres across the country, and around the worlD. Wilson himself earned many honors, including Guggenheim and Rockefeller Fellowships, the Heinz Award, and the Whiting Writers Award. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and New Dramatists. In 1999, he was awarded a National Humanities Medal by the President of the United States, and he was posthumously inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. On October 16, 2005, the Broadway theatre located at 245 West 52nd Street was renamed the August Wilson Theatre in honor of his deep legacy to American drama.

Lindo has assembled a talented cast of experienced actors to bring Wilson's world to life. Teagle F. Bougere (Herald Loomis) returns to Berkeley Rep after performing as Jesse, Rex, and Simon in Blue Door. His many stage and screen credits include the Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun and The Tempest, directed by George C. Wolfe, which earned him a Drama League Award. Kenya Broome (Martha Loomis) played Juliette in the American premiere of I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda at Kansas City Repertory Theatre. She has numerous credits at regional theatres across the nation. Don Guillory (Jeremy Furlow) earned his MFA from New York University. He has performed at Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Playwrights Conference, and Yale Repertory Theatre. He was also seen as Wendell Freeman on One Life to Live. Barry Shabaka Henley (Seth Holly) shared Drama Desk, Obie, and Olivier Awards for best ensemble for Wilson's Jitney and was a member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe the year it won the Tony Award. His face is familiar from films such as Ali, Bulworth, Collateral, Lackawanna Blues, Miami Vice, Patch Adams, Rush Hour, and The Terminal and recurring roles on Barbershop, Close to Home, Heroes, Hustle, Numb3rs, NYPD Blue, and Robbery Homicide Division. Dan Hiatt (Rutherford Selig) previously appeared at Berkeley Rep in Dinner with Friends and Menocchio. His regional credits also include local shows at American Conservatory Theater, California Shakespeare Theater, the Eureka Theatre, Magic Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, San Jose Repertory Theatre, and TheatreWorks. Brent Jennings (Bynum Walker) has been seen in the films 48 Hours, Boycott, Brubaker, Dancing in September, Honeydripper, A Lesson Before Dying, Life, Red Heat, The Serpent and the Rainbow, The Soul of the Game, and Witness. A two-time Drama-Logue Award winner, he performed on Broadway in The Mighty Gents and the Pulitzer Prize-winning production of A Soldier's Play. Erica Peeples (Molly Cunningham) recently graduated from The Juilliard School. Her latest credits include Drip at Ars Nova, a reading of Crippled Sisters at New York Theatre Workshop, and an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Tiffany Michelle Thompson (Mattie Campbell) played Leafy Lee in Berkeley Rep's production of Polk County. Her off-Broadway experience includes After the Show, As You Like It, Flyin' West, No Place to be Somebody, and Smokey Joe's Café – and, on television, she had a recurring role as Angela Bosen on Law & Order: SVU. Kim Staunton (Bertha Holly) has performed on Broadway, off Broadway, and at regional theatres throughout the country. For the last seven years, she has been a company member at Denver Center Theatre Company. Her many film and television credits include Amos and Andrew, Bark, Changing Lanes, Deceived, Dragonfly, First Sunday, Glory and Honor, and Heat. The ensemble for Joe Turner's Come and Gone also includes four local children.

Five accomplished designers have signed on to assist Lindo on this project. Scott Bradley (scenic design) has worked on nearly all of Wilson's plays. On Broadway, he designed the original production of Joe Turner and won a Drama Desk Award for Seven Guitars. Berkeley Rep audiences will remember his sets for Eurydice, The Glass Menagerie, Journey to the West, and The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Reggie Ray (costume design) received seven Woodie King, Jr. Awards for his work as resident designer at St. Louis Black Repertory Company and a Helen Hayes Award for the Washington, DC production of Spunk. He has worked at major theatres nationwide and serves as resident instructor of costume design and make-up at Howard University. William H. Grant III (lighting design) has illuminated dance, opera, and theatre performances throughout the world including at the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Opera, and Philadelphia's Academy of Music. Most recently, he designed the Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Cliff Caruthers (sound design) is an artistic associate at the Cutting Ball Theater, a company member of Crowded Fire, and resident sound designer for TheatreWorks. He has created sound and music for more than 100 shows in the Bay Area, including the American premiere of TRAGEDY: a tragedy at Berkeley Rep. Dwight Andrews (music director) is a composer, musician, educator, and minister who collaborated with Wilson on five Broadway productions. He also served as music supervisor for the recent Kennedy Center production of August Wilson's 20th Century, a presentation of the playwright's entire ten-play cycle. The stage manager for this show is Cynthia Cahill, who returns to Berkeley Rep after the Broadway run of Passing Strange.

Joe Turner is only part of a bold season that brings brilliant artists back to Berkeley Rep and provides proof of the Theatre's commitment to commission 50 new plays by 2013. The season also includes Taccone's world premiere of Yellowjackets, a new commission from Itamar Moses; Mary Zimmerman's alluring adaptation of The Arabian Nights; Les Waters' take on The Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh and his premiere of a comedy commissioned from Sarah Ruhl, In the Next Room (or the vibrator play); and two shows staged by former Artistic Director Sharon Ott: Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and the world premiere of You, Nero by Amy Freed.

Theatre-lovers can guarantee their seats for these shows by subscribing to Berkeley Rep. Choose three or more plays and get the best seats at the lowest price. In addition to significant savings, subscribers receive valuable benefits such as the right to reschedule for free, discounts when purchasing tickets for friends, and the opportunity to secure seats before the general public for special events like Ennio and No Child…. Berkeley Rep also offers generous discounts for senior citizens, theatregoers under 30, and employees of preschools, elementary schools, and secondary schools. Subscriptions begin as low as $84 – and subscribers save up to 29% on every ticket. Because of last season's string of hits, subscriptions to Berkeley Rep are selling fast. For the best seats, order now!

Individual tickets for Joe Turner's Come and Gone start at only $27, thanks to exciting new prices that let more people experience the best theatre in the Bay Area.  Additional savings are available for groups, seniors, students, and anyone under 30 years of age – meaning discounted seats can be obtained for as little as $13.50. This change makes Berkeley Rep more affordable to people in the community who are just starting school, starting careers, and starting families – because lower prices are now available for every performance.

ABOUT BERKELEY REP

Born in a storefront on College Avenue, Berkeley Rep has moved to the forefront of American theatre – and is still telling unforgettable stories. Founded in 1968 by Michael Leibert, the Theatre quickly earned respect for presenting the finest plays with top-flight actors. In 1980, with the support of the local community, Berkeley Rep built the 400-seat Thrust Stage where its reputation steadily grew over the next two decades. It gained renown for an adventurous combination of work, presenting important new dramatic voices alongside refreshing adaptations of seldom-seen classics. In recognition of its place on the national stage, Berkeley Rep was honored with the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre in 1997. The company celebrated by unveiling a new 600-seat proscenium stage in 2001, the state-of-the-art Roda Theatre. It also opened the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, a permanent home for its long tradition of outreach and education programs. The addition of these two buildings transformed a single stage into a vital and versatile performing arts complex, the linchpin of a bustling Downtown Arts District which has helped revitalize Berkeley. In four decades, four million people have enjoyed more than 300 shows at Berkeley Rep, including 50 world premieres. The Theatre now welcomes an annual audience of 180,000, serves 20,000 students, and hosts dozens of community groups, thanks to 1,000 volunteers and more than 400 artists, artisans, and administrators. In the last two years, Berkeley Rep has helped send five hit shows to New York: Bridge & Tunnel, Brundibar, Eurydice, Passing Strange, and Taking Over.

Photo Credit www.kevinberne.com

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