Joe Turner's Come and Gone is a play by American
playwright,
August Wilson, the second installment of his decade-by-decade chronicle of the
African-American experience,
The Pittsburgh Cycle. The play was first staged 1984 at the
Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in
Waterford, Connecticut and opened on
Broadway on 27 March 1988 at the
Ethel Barrymore Theatre and ran for 105 performances. Directed by
Lloyd Richards, the cast included
Delroy Lindo as Herald Loomis and television and movie star
Angela Bassett as Loomis's wife, Martha.
Title
The original working title of the play was
Mill Hand's Lunch Bucket, the title of a painting by
Romare Bearden.
The title
Joe Turner's Come and Gone is a line from the refrain of "
Joe Turner", an early blues song.
[Big Bill Broonzy, Alan Lomax: Blues Songbook, disc 2.]