LCT Plans August Wilson Symposium, 'Joe Turner to the Age of Obama'

In conjunction with its Broadway revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come And Gone, Lincoln Center Theater will host a free symposium, “August Wilson’s Century: From the World of Joe Turner to the Age of Obama,” on April 27 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. LCT’s production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is scheduled to open on April 16 at the Belasco Theatre, directed by Bartlett Sher.

The discussion will feature New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert, award-winning author John Edgar Wideman Brothers and Keepers and acclaimed playwright Tracey Scott Wilson The Good Negro and will be moderated by noted African-American scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

The symposium will explore the literary, political and topical changes in the African-American experience from 1911, the year in which Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is set, to the present day. Part of Wilson’s ten-play Century Cycle, Joe Turner originally opened on Broadway in 1988, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Play and winning that year’s New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play tells the story of Herald Loomis who, after serving seven years hard labor, has journeyed North with his young daughter and arrives at a Pittsburgh boarding house filled with memorable characters who aid him in his search for his inner freedom.

The symposium will begin at 7:30PM and doors will open at 7 for general admission seating.