{"id":644443,"date":"2026-05-15T09:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T09:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/644443\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T09:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T09:48:13","slug":"taraji-p-henson-on-joe-turners-come-gone-intermission-announcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/644443\/","title":{"rendered":"Taraji P. Henson On ‘Joe Turner’s Come & Gone’ Intermission Announcement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAfter making her Broadway<\/a> debut last month, Taraji P. Henson<\/a> is opening up about the challenges of performing for a live audience.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Golden Globe winner, who plays Bertha Holly in the current revival of August Wilson\u2019s Joe Turner\u2019s Come and Gone at the Barrymore Theatre, recently commented on director Debbie Allen<\/a>\u2018s pre-recorded intermission announcement asking audience members to silence their phones and behave (such recordings are a common practice at Broadway shows).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTheater is not for punks, okay? Theater is for the strong,\u201d she told Vulture<\/a>. \u201cYou have to have discipline. I love that it\u2019s a living organism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHenson continued, \u201cYou can\u2019t do theater and forget the audience. That\u2019s why every show is different. You\u2019ve got to work through it. That cell phone ringing might make me throw my line. But I got to stay in character.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith Henson flexing her theater muscle amid her Broadway debut, the actress admitted that she accepted the role in hopes of working with longtime friend and supporter Allen (who awarded Henson a scholarship before her acting career took off) on a feature adaptation of the 1984 play.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCedric the Entertainer, Taraji P. Henson, Constanza Romero Wilson and Debbie Allen during the opening night curtain call for the Broadway revival of August Wilson\u2019s \u2018Joe Turner\u2019s Come and Gone\u2019 at The Barrymore Theatre on April 25, 2026 in New York City (Bruce Glikas\/WireImage)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBefore, I didn\u2019t have the space on my schedule,\u201d she explained of why she chose now to do Broadway. \u201cAlso, it\u2019s Debbie Allen. I\u2019m no fool. I know they\u2019re making the film. That\u2019s how they got me. Debbie was like, \u2018We going to do the film, but child, we got to do this play first.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHenson added, \u201cI had actually spoken to Todd Black before about being in one of the August Wilson movies he was producing because we were producing something together at the time. He was like, \u2018Tell me which character, which play.\u2019 And we both got busy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBlack previously produced Fences (2016), Ma Rainey\u2019s Black Bottom (2020) and The Piano Lesson (2024).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After making her Broadway debut last month, Taraji P. Henson is opening up about the challenges of performing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[21540,236,149892,88,263773,31872],"class_list":["post-644443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-broadway","tag-celebrities","tag-debbie-allen","tag-entertainment","tag-joe-turners-come-and-gone","tag-taraji-p-henson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}