Producer Brian Anthony Moreland has officially announced that Golden Globe winner and multi-award-nominated Taraji P. Henson and six-time NAACP Image Award winner Cedric the Entertainer will headline this new Broadway staging of August Wilson’s seminal play. Directed by the illustrious Debbie Allen, the production is set for a Shubert Theatre opening in Spring 2026.

This marks Taraji P. Henson’s Broadway acting debut, although she previously made waves on Broadway as a producer of the Tony-nominated Jaja’s African Hair Braiding. She will portray Bertha Holly, alongside Cedric, who returns to Broadway as Seth Holly following his debut in American Buffalo (2008).

Producer Brian Anthony Moreland—who recently brought us The Piano Lesson starring Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, and Danielle Brooks, and last season’s star-caliber Othello featuring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal—described the revival as:

“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.”

A Legacy of Black Excellence

Debbie Allen, a pioneering figure in Black performance, made her Broadway debut in Purlie in 1970 and has dazzled audiences in Raisin, West Side Story, and Sweet Charity. She directed the all-Black 2008 production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and is set to receive an honorary Oscar at the 2025 Governors Awards.

Taraji P. Henson brings a critical lens and wide-ranging acclaim—from her breakout in Hustle & Flow and Oscar nomination in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, to standout roles in Hidden Figures, The Color Purple, and Empire. In television, her guest turn on Abbott Elementary earned her an Emmy nomination. Her off-stage impact is equally powerful: she spearheaded mental health advocacy through the Boris L. Henson Foundation and champions Black wellness and inclusion. As a producer, she earned a Tony nomination for Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.

Cedric the Entertainer returns to Broadway after his debut in American Buffalo. The comedian, actor, and author currently stars in CBS’s The Neighborhood, now entering its eighth season, and co-created the Hulu series Kings of BBQ. His debut novel, Flipping Boxcars, weaves familial lore into a crime narrative, while his philanthropic efforts continue through The Kyles Family Foundation, supporting organizations such as Boys & Girls Clubs and St. Jude’s.

A Story of Spiritual Rediscovery

Set in 1911, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone unfolds in a Pittsburgh boarding house owned by Seth and Bertha Holly—a steadfast husband and his warm, nurturing wife. Their home becomes a sanctuary for Black folks on the move, seeking stability in the wake of the Great Migration. But when a mysterious man named Herald Loomis arrives, the house is shaken by more than just passing footsteps. Loomis is searching—not just for the wife he lost, but for the pieces of himself stolen during seven years of illegal enslavement under the haunting grip of Joe Turner.

As buried trauma rises and ancestral spirits stir, Loomis’s path becomes one of spiritual reckoning, identity reclamation, and hard-won healing. Around him, others navigate their own quests for love, livelihood, and liberation—each of them trying to shape a future not defined by sorrow, but by possibility.

The second play in August Wilson’s American Century Cycle, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is a deeply poetic portrait of Black resilience—one that wrestles with memory, community, and the ever-burning hope of a freedom that goes beyond escape.

Stay tuned for additional casting and theatre details, coming soon. For more information, visit www.JoeTurnerBway.com.

Broadway Black covers the artists, stories, and cultural moments shaping Black theatre. Follow us for all the latest on this extraordinary revival.

The post Taraji P. Henson and Cedric the Entertainer to Star in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone on Broadway, Directed by Debbie Allen appeared first on Broadway Black.

Directed by Tony Award nominee LaTanya Richardson Jackson (A Raisin In The Sun, To Kill A Mockingbird), who is making her Broadway directorial debut and will be the first woman to ever direct an August Wilson play on Broadway, this production will star Samuel L. Jackson (The Mountaintop), who originated the role of Boy Willie at Yale Rep in 1987,  as Doaker Charles, John David Washington as Boy Willie, and Antonyo Award winner and Tony nominee Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple) as Berniece. The Piano Lesson will begin performances on Monday, September 19, 2022, at the St. James Theatre.

“August Wilson dedicated his life and devoted his talent to dramatizing our stories and our experience. In doing so, he forever changed what it means to be Black in America. His plays built empathy, created community, and showed us the power of representation. The Piano Lesson is one of his most enduring, profound and consequential masterpieces, and I am reveling in this opportunity to present it to Broadway audiences for the first time since its premiere.”

LaTanya Richardson Jackson

The Piano Lesson is set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in 1936.  A brother and sister are locked in a war over the fate of a family heirloom: a piano carved with the faces of their ancestors. Only by revisiting history can the siblings endeavor to move forward.

August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Piano Lesson is the fourth play in the American Century Cycle, which premiered at the Yale Repertory Theatre in 1987, starring a then-39-year-old Samuel L. Jackson as Boy Willie. Three years later, a new production, starring Carl Gordon, Charles S. Dutton, and S. Epatha Merkerson, opened at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, and soon transferred to Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre. In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize for drama, The Piano Lesson won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, the Peabody Award, and was nominated for the 1990 Tony Award for Best Play.

Producers Moreland (Thoughts of a Colored Man), Friedman (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), and Kirdahy (Hadestown) said:

“We are humbled and honored to return Mr. Wilson’s work to the Broadway stage under the inspirational LaTanya Richardson Jackson. After more than 30 years, The Piano Lesson is still adding to the ever-evolving conversation about family legacy. This production is coming back to Broadway at such an exciting time for our industry as we work to rebuild – and who better than Mr. Wilson to help us.”

Wilson’s American Century Cycle chronicles the Black experience throughout the 20^th Century over the course of ten plays – each set in a different decade. The Cycle consists of Jitney, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fences, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson, Two Trains Running, Seven Guitars, King Hedley II, Gem of the Ocean, and Radio Golf. The Cycle includes five New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award winners, two Pulitzer Prize winners, and a Tony Award-winning Best Play.

The St. James Theatre is owned and operated by Jujamcyn Theaters, who produced the original Broadway production of The Piano Lesson at their theatre, the Walter Kerr, in 1990. In 2005, Jujamcyn Theaters renamed the Virginia Theatre the “August Wilson Theatre” in honor of the Pulitzer-Prize winner. Additionally, their history with August Wilson goes back many years. Jujamcyn Theaters lead produced six original productions in Wilson’s Century Cycle, including the Broadway runs of The Piano Lesson (1990, Walter Kerr); Two Trains Running (1992, Walter Kerr); Seven Guitars (1996, Walter Kerr); King Hedley II (2001, formerly the Virginia, now the August Wilson); Gem of the Ocean (2004, Walter Kerr); and Radio Golf (2007, Cort).

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A Raisin In the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

Loosely based on the playwright’s life, the Younger family grapples with an American dilemma that coerces the psyche into believing that separate really is equal. In post-WWII Chicago, where everyone was looking to feed themselves literally and figuratively with a piece of the American dream, Walter, Ruth, Mama, Beneatha, and Travis find themselves in the middle of a custody battle over the soul and integrity of America; believing in the power of change and progression and reconciling with the truth of a divided American landscape. This drama first debuted on Broadway in 1959, starring Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Louis Gossett, Claudia McNeil, and Glynn Turman. It has since seen multiple revivals on Broadway in 2004 and 2014, with the 2004 production winning for Best Actress in a Play for Phylicia Rashaad and Best Featured Actress in a Play for Audra McDonald. The 2014 production resulted in wins for Sophie Okonedo for Best Featured Actress in a Play, Kenny Leon for Direction of a Play, and Best Revival of a Play. A Raisin In the Sun is also the first play written by a Black woman to be performed and produced on Broadway. 

A full audio recording of the play from L.A. Theatre Works can be found HERE.

Fences by August Wilson

Written in 1985 as part of Wilson’s “Pittsburgh Cycle,” Fences closely tracks the internal turmoil that Troy faces in providing for his wife and teenage son. As a man whose dreams were not fully realized as a major league baseball player, Troy tries to build himself up within the city sanitation department as a driver (something Black men weren’t allowed to do). Young people should read this play primarily for the conversation between Troy and his son, Cory, about being a parent, a caregiver, and a Black man. Troy says, “A man got to take care of his family. You live in my house… sleep your behind on my bedclothes… fill your belly up with my food… cause you my son—you my flesh and blood. Not ’cause I like you! Cause it’s my duty to take care of you.” The original Broadway production won the Tony Awards for Best Play, Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play (James Earl Jones), Best Direction, and Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play (Mary Alice). The 2010 revival won Best Performance by a Leading Actor and Leading Actress in a Play for Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, respectively, and Best Revival of a Play. 

for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange 

Shange’s emotional choreopoem, which fuses music, dance, and poetry, is a literary blueprint for understanding and appreciating Black women. It debuted at the Booth Theater in New York City in 1976 and was only the second work by a Black woman to be done on Broadway (it was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play in 1976). Referred to only by a color (red, orange, blue, green, purple, yellow, and brown), each woman relishes in her own self-discovery and self-identity in a world that has yet to see them for the beautiful humans they are. Shange illuminates the power of Black female sisterhood while also encouraging the reader to heal, survive, and reclaim their joy. The Public Theater recently did a production in 2019 that Camille A. Brown choreographed. 

Pipeline by Dominique Morisseau

Omari is a young Black male dealing with the pressures of high school academia in a school where microaggressions are as common as saying the pledge of allegiance. Morisseau’s modern drama on race and the education system may appear to be a shocking reflection of what young people may encounter today. Still, it is also a challenge for educators everywhere to see their students beyond a name on a class roster. Omari and his mother, Nya, push each other to combat the triggers that young Black men face regularly, and do some deep soul-searching to heal their mother-son relationship, so Omari doesn’t lose himself by proving himself. The play was nominated for five Lucille Lortel Awards during its run at Lincoln Center and can currently be found on BroadwayHD.

The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe

Performed as vignettes known as “exhibits,” The Colored Museum illuminates the  Black experience by taking the reader and audience member on a historical journey from the flight to Savannah from the Ivory Coast in “Git On Board” to the ode to Black theatre drama in “The Last Mama-on-the-Couch Play” in which Wolfe makes references to Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf and Hansberry’s A Raisin In the Sun. The Colored Museum takes the tragedy and pain of our experience as Black people living in America. It gives it a distinct voice of truth and integrity that has otherwise been whitewashed and gaslit.

Honorable mentions:

A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller

Blues For Mister Charlie by James Baldwin

Stick Fly by Lydia R. Diamond

The post Class Is In Session: 5 Plays by Black Playwrights Every Young Black Student Should Read appeared first on Broadway Black.

Drew Shade, Founder, Creative Director of Broadway Black | Photo by Ambe J

“I ain’t never found no place for me to fit. Seem like all I do is start over. It ain’t nothing to find no starting place in the world. You start from where you find yourself.”

― August Wilson, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

It can be easy to get discouraged and difficult to continue the artist journey. At times you question, do I belong? Why am I doing this? Is it worth it? Then you find that one glimmer of light that fuels your next step, and all feels right again– until it doesn’t, and you must start again.

There have been several times that I’ve wanted to abandon my vision of Broadway Black. I’ve doubted, sabotaged, and chastised myself for having to learn what I didn’t know, internalizing the negative more than the positive, thinking that I was proving to a higher power that the vision wasn’t meant to be, it wasn’t meant for me. Thinking that if I stop, it will all just go away. But that’s not how visions work, I’ve learned. Your heart pulls, and your body becomes restless until you get back up and start again.

Know there is more joy than sorrow hanging in the world waiting for you to claim it. You may not know how-to DIY, but that doesn’t matter when you’re called. Grace has extended itself long enough to wait for you to show up and start over. Whatever your “this” is, believe it’s for you. Forget being embarrassed for your lack of “training” and your “unpolished” technique. Share your “this” the best way you know to share it.  Use all that fear, rage, sadness, or disgust you’ve bottled up inside so you can get to the joy, happiness, kindness, and love because you deserve it. You’re worthy.

The “industry” still has a long way to go to rebuild with all of us in mind. So, In the meantime, keep creating and lighting your own way. You don’t need to prove or qualify your resilience. Don’t let the seeking of approval and validation rob you of your art. Approve yourself. Validate yourself.

That is #BroadwayBlack!

Warmly

Drew Shade

Founder/Creative Director of Broadway Black

The post A Letter From The Director: You Must Keep Starting Over appeared first on Broadway Black.

Photo courtesy of USPS

2020 continues to show signs of a wonderful redemption story! The extraordinary August Wilson will be honored on a permanent stamp from the U.S Postal Service! On January 28th, USPS will dedicate the Black Heritage: August Wilson Commemorative Forever Stamp in a virtual ceremony via their Facebook and Twitter pages at 11:30 a.m EST.

Wilson is a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright best known for writing a ten-part play series, The Pittsburgh Cycle. The series includes the timeless Fences, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and The Piano Lesson, to name a few. These plays showcased African Americans’ experiences and culture in the 20th century and paved the way for Black theatre on Broadway.

Since his passing in 2005, August Wilson’s legacy continues to revive some of his most notable works, the creation of the August Wilson Monologue Competition and the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway, earning him the accolade as the first African American (and currently, only) to have a Broadway theatre in their name.

For more information on the Black Heritage: August Wilson Commemorative Forever Stamp, visit HERE

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With more than 40 film and television projects under her belt, and having shared the screen with the likes of Forest Whitaker, Bernie Mac, Don Cheadle, Robert Duvall, Salma Hayek, and Jenna Elfman, this Texas native and Yale School of Drama grad admits that theatre is her first love – embracing and reveling in the energy that’s shared with a live audience.

“It’s a sacred triangle between you, your fellow colleagues onstage, and the audience. There’s a synergy there that doesn’t exist with a camera,” Scott says.

Nottage’s Sweat is a timely and relevant piece that delves into the impact of corporate buyouts, outsourcing, and the disappearance of manufacturing jobs on human capital. Nottage set the play in a small town to “explore America’s industrial decline at the turn of the millennium by examining the inhabitants of one Pennsylvania town who still struggle to reclaim what’s lost, find redemption and redefine themselves in a new century.” Sweat premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in August and is now headed to the Arena Stage’s Kreeger Theater in Washington, DC, where it opens on January 15 and runs through February 21.

Scott is cast in the role of “Cynthia” one of two friends for life who work at a local factory in Reading, Pa. Tracey (Johanna Day) is white; and Cynthia is black. Their friendship is tested when Cynthia is promoted to management, causing a painful rift with Tracey, who had also applied. Tracey attributes Cynthia’s selection to tokenism.

In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with Broadway Black, Scott discussed her latest role, her thoughts on comparisons of Nottage and Wilson, and other topics.

What is it about the role of Cynthia that drew you to it?

I know Lynn’s work and she’s a beast, she’s amazing, and opens windows into people’s souls, her character’s souls that are just astonishing and lovely. I had not even read the play when I said “yes.” I knew it was going to be beautiful. I knew it was Lynn, and I went, “I’m in. Can I read it?” They said, “We only have the first act. We only have the first act.” I said, “Let me read it.” I was like, “Okay, if you think…” they’re like, “Yeah, we think.” Then, about a month before we started, I got to read the whole play, and it blew my mind.

Reviewers have sometimes compared Nottage to August Wilson, particularly as it relates to dialogue. Do you see any similarities between the two, having worked with both of them?

I think that the joy in the language is absolutely there. That joy, that familiarity, that humanity, is absolutely comparable and the same, and glorious. It’s glorious, the way she makes these people that are completely familiar. You know who they are. You know these people, you know their situation, and you know their feeling. She does not write things that are easy. They’re beautiful mountains, they are beautiful mountains that you have to climb. You can’t see it, when they call places you can’t see the top. Somehow, you have to take it one scene at a time, one moment at a time. I feel that way about Sweat. You take it one moment at a time, you take it one scene at a time, you keep breathing, and you keep going forward in the experience of these characters in the play.

That was the way it was with August. Very, very keen ear for his own work. That’s the thing they have in common, the keen ear and also the joy. She has a great joy in the room. August would lean back and laugh and enjoy it. She enjoys hearing your experience of what she’s written. She enjoys you turning on the lights in this rooms that she’s furnished. It’s beautiful; it’s really quite beautiful.

“Cynthia” faces some very real issues when she gets the promotion – allegations of tokenism. Some of us have felt that at some point in life. As an actress who’s played very diverse roles, have you ever encountered anything like that and what was your response? Did your response affect how you handled that in the role?

Doing the play, telling this story is so familiar for so many of us. It’s so familiar. I had so many women walk up to me and say, “Girl, girl let me tell you. Girl.” It’s having that experience of suffering and questioning the value of your own ambition.

It’s hard because ambition is hard enough; self-esteem is hard enough. Then, to become a tool, to have it all, to be used in the way that she gets used, is hard. It’s hard to tell the story because it’s familiar. I really think that if you have any ambition at all, if you have any sense of self-esteem or achievement as an African-American woman in America, you can understand what Cynthia goes through. It’s tough to lean into what it is that she goes through with her friends. It’s not simple, it’s class, it’s race; it’s all of that. Friendship on top of that, and camaraderie, and 20 years of experience, 30 years of experience, it’s tough. It doesn’t matter who you are, it’s close.

The play opens at Arena Stage DC on January 15. You’ve played there before in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, what will it be like to go back?

Every audience is different, but to do this play in Washington DC, so close to the area that this is talking about, so close. There will be exponentially more people who not only have had an experience like it, but will know exactly what we’re talking about. On top of that, possibly people in the audience who will have a possible way to affect the situation, policy wise, that’s very gratifying. I look forward to, possibly, the congressmen and senators, and people from the various departments of the U.S. Government who could come and see this play and understand, maybe, on a more fundamental level, what’s happening. I think that Lynn has written a play that is as illuminating to the deindustrialization of America and this moment in history that we’re at, as Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman was to that moment in American history – for the American working man.

For someone with such an impressive and enviable body of work, how have you been able to maintain longevity in a profession where people often get discouraged and give up, or they just can’t get the roles?

There came a moment when my dad died. It got real, as they say. I realized, life is finite, and daylight is burning. I was living in Los Angeles and when you live in Los Angeles, you do television and film, you tend to turn down a lot of theater to wait around for film work and television work. When my dad died I had just done a play and I realized how much I missed doing theater. I was doing theater over the years, but not as much as I could have been doing. I wasn’t doing everything that I was offered. I had this moment where I realized, “Wow, I need to follow my bliss. I need to do that. I need to trust that everything’s going to come out okay. I need to go ahead and do what’s offered to me because it’s coming to me for a reason.” I just decided, I’m not going to turn down nothing but my hat.

I’m Buddhist. My practice is so much about really attracting things and not chasing after my fortune. I’m not trying to chase after my fortune anymore. I’m really trusting that my fortune is coming to me. Ever since I’ve really tried to stand in that truth, it’s been great

What is it that inspires you?

My colleagues inspire me endlessly, their courage, their bravery. We have three new cast members and just the opportunity to rediscover the play with new people, that’s inspiring, as well as the experience of discovering it the first time with the people who originated their roles. I have a profound belief that the first cast leaves DNA in the play, there’s no getting around that.

When you do world premieres, you’re crafting an experience. You’re crafting a play. You’re crafting this thing, telling this story. You have these actors telling this story, this way. You’ve got a director working on it and on the way we tell that story, but no matter who the director is, and the playwright, and the words that the playwright has brought to the table, and we tell that story, there’s no getting around the fact that the first cast puts a stamp on it.

For tickets to see Scott in Sweat at the Arena Stage’s Kreeger Theater in Washington, DC, visit here.

The post Exclusive: Kimberly Scott Talks Sweat, Nottage Vs. Wilson, & What Inspires Her appeared first on Broadway Black.

Skeleton Crew is a tale about how a makeshift family of workers at the last exporting auto plant in the city navigate the possibility of foreclosure. Power dynamics shift and they are pushed to the limits of survival. When the line between blue collar and white collar gets blurred, how far over the lines are they willing to step?

The production’s cast includes Jason Dirden (12 Angry Men, A Raisin In The Sun, Fences), Lynda Gravatt (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Doubt, King Hedley II, 45 Seconds from Broadway), Adesola Osakalumi (Fela!, Fela! The Concert, Equus), Nikiya Mathis, and Wendell B. Franklin.

Actor, director, and Obie Award winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson is directing the play. Santiago-Hudson also directed the second installment of the trilogy, Paradise Blue, which was staged last summer at the Williamstown Theater Festival. The first installment of Morisseau’s trilogy, Detroit ’67, ran at the Public Theater in 2013.

Morisseau is a recent PoNY (Playwright of New York) fellow, and also wrote Sunset Baby, Follow Me To Nellie’s, and Blood At The Root. Her work has been published in N.Y. Times bestseller “Chicken Soup for the African American Soul” and in the Harlem-based literary journal “Signifyin’ Harlem.” She is a Jane Chambers Playwriting Award honoree, a two-time NAACP Image Award recipient, and winner of the Stavis Playwriting Award.

Santiago-Hudson is a noted actor and playwright who has appeared on Broadway in Jelly’s Last Jam and Stick Fly. He received a Tony Award for his performance in August Wilson’s Seven Guitars. In 2001, Santiago-Hudson wrote Lackawanna Blues, an autobiographical play in which he portrayed himself and some twenty different characters from his past. He adapted it for an award-winning 2005 HBO film starring Hill Harper, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Terrance Howard.

In 2013, Santiago-Hudson won an Obie Award for Direction and was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play for his work in the Off-Broadway production of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.

Skeleton will run through February 14, 2016. Tickets for the production can be purchased here.

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The announcement was made by Hollywood Foreign Press Association president Lorenzo Soria, who knew Washington was the perfect choice given his entire film career. “Washington’s long and storied career is earmarked by his countless roles in front and behind the camera,” he says.

The Cecil B. DeMille Award is given annually to a “talented individual for outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.” The winner is chosen by the HFPA Board of Directors. Washington will be only the third Black recipient of The Cecil B. DeMille Award in its 63-year history, joining Sidney Poitier in 1982 and his Glory co-star, Morgan Freeman in 2012.

Washington holds the record for most Academy Award nominations for a Black actor with six nominations and two wins, one for Best Supporting Actor in Glory, and one for Best Actor in Training Day.  His win in 2001 for Training Day ended an unconscionable 38-year gap between Black actors winning in the Best Actor category.

In 2010, Washington won the Tony Award for Best Actor In A Play for his role in August Wilson’s Fences alongside Tony Award winner Viola Davis. He was last seen on Broadway in the 2014 revival of A Raisin In The Sun also starring LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Sophie Okonedo, and Anika Noni Rose.

More recently, Denzel has been putting a hand in the directing/producing field. As Broadway Black previously reported, Washington closed a deal with HBO where he will direct and produce film adaptations of the August Wilson cycle, one a year for the next nine years. The first will be Fences which he will star in alongside former co-star Viola Davis.

The 2016 Golden Globes airs live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 10 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.

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In Domingo’s latest work, Uggams will play “Dotty,” a family matriarch who’s dealing with dementia and squabbling children during the holidays. This will mark her first extended run on a New York stage since she appeared in The First Breeze of Summer in 2008. Stephen Conrad Moore and Sharon Washington will also join Uggams in Dot.

Uggams grew up performing for audiences, getting her start in show business when she was seven years old playing Ethel Waters’ niece on the sitcom “Beulah.“ She then went on to perform on the “Lawrence Welk Show” and was a regular on “Sing Along with Mitch,” with record producer/conductor Mitch Miller.

She’s had a long and illustrious career on stage beginning with her 1967 Broadway debut in the musical Hallelujah, Baby! Her performance earned her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical as well as a Theatre World Award. She’s also appeared on Broadway in the revue Blues in the Night in 1982 and in Jerry’s Girls, the musical revue of the works of Jerry Herman in 1985. Uggams replaced Patti LuPone as “Reno Sweeney” in the Lincoln Center revival of Cole Porter’s musical Anything Goes on Broadway in 1989. Her other roles have included “Muzzy” in Thoroughly Modern Millie and “Ethel Thayer” in On Golden Pond. In 2001, Uggams was nominated for a Tony Award for her role in August Wilson’s King Hedley II.

Dot, which has been called a “testament to the enduring bonds of family,” isn’t Domingo’s first foray into playwriting. The Tony-nominated actor also pennd a one-man autobiographical play A Boy and His Soul, for which he won a GLAAD Award: Outstanding New York Theater: Broadway & Off–Broadway. He also wrote and starred in Wild with Happy.

Susan Stroman, who won a Tony Award for The Producers, will direct Dot. The play premiered in the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Ky., earlier this year.

Dot is scheduled to open on February 4, 2016 and run through April 3, 2016 at the Vineyard Theatre. For tickets and more information visit vineyardtheatre.org.

The post Leslie Uggams To Star in Colman Domingo’s DOT appeared first on Broadway Black.

Kelley’s latest play follows “Sarah” as she begins a journey to sort out her family history and in the process she traces the lives of three generations of women “through music, memory, and magic.”

In a recent interview, Kelley revealed that the play’s unique name came about during a dream that she had several years ago.

“I woke up and had this phrase in my head: ‘For Her as a Piano.’ I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know what it was supposed to be, but I wrote it down and kept it in the back of my mind.”

Ilesa Duncan directs the play with music composed by Jaret Landon and is being produced in association with The Goodman Theatre and Chicago Dramatists. The cast features Toya Turner as “Sarah” along with Nadirah Bost, Dushon Brown, Toni Lynice Fountain, Nicole Michelle Haskins, Monette McLin, and Camille Robinson.

In addition to her critically acclaimed adaptation of Native Son, Kelley has penned plays for Steppenwolf, Goodman Theatre, and Court Theatre, American Blues, Lincoln Center in New York, and internationally. She was recently awarded a residency at The National Black Theatre in New York City to be a playwright in residence for 2015-17.

As an actress, she was recently nominated for a Hattie McDaniel Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play by the Black Theatre Alliance Awards, Inc. for her work as “Risa” in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running. She’s also appeared on television in “Person of Interest,” “Madam Secretary,” “Elementary,” and “Chicago PD.”

Performances of For Her As A Piano are scheduled to run through November 1 and tickets can be purchased here.

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