Congo Square Theatre Company Caps 2006-2007 Season

Congo Square Theatre Company caps its 2006-2007 Season with August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone at Goodman Theatre's Owen Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago, Jan. 20 - Feb. 18. Previews are Jan. 20 - Jan. 28; press performances are Sunday, Jan. 28 at 6 p.m. and Opening Night, Monday, Jan. 29 at 8 p.m.

Congo Square Theatre Company's staging of Joe Turner's Come and Gone is part of the Goodman Theatre's August Wilson Celebration (Jan. 13 - Feb. 19). This two-month salute to the late playwright, centered around the Goodman Theatre's Broadway-bound Radio Golf and Congo Square's Joe Turner's Come and Gone, also includes a series of special events featuring the art and artists who helped make Wilson one of America's greatest writers. For more information about the August Wilson Celebration phone the Goodman Theatre box office at 321.443.3800 or visit goodmantheatre.org.

"Congo Square Theatre Company is proud to be part of the Goodman's August Wilson Celebration and I'm excited to be able to showcase the extraordinary talent of our ensemble in this production of Joe Turner's Come and Gone," says Derrick Sanders, the Company's Founding Artistic Director. "Our ensemble's close working relationship and our strong personal connection to August gave an extraordinary depth and sense of realism to our inaugural staging of Wilson's The Piano Lesson and, more recently, our triple Jeff-Award winning Seven Guitars. I know this will once again be the case for Joe Turner."

Winner of the 1998 New York Drama Critic's Circle Award for Best Play, Joe Turner's Come and Gone is part of August Wilson's 10-play cycle and one of Wilson's best-loved and most compelling works. Set in a Pittsburgh boardinghouse in 1911, it tells the story of Herald Loomis, a man searching the country with his young daughter to find his estranged wife. Loomis' journey takes him to the boarding house, where his self-discovery leads him to salvation. Inspired by the 1978 Romare Bearden artwork, Mill Hand's Lunch Bucket, the play examines African Americans' search for their cultural identity.

Congo Square Theatre Company's production of Joe Turner's Come and Gone will be directed by Founding Artistic Director Derrick Sanders and feature Congo Square Ensemble members Aaron Todd Douglas (Seth Holly), Javon Johnson (Herald Loomis), Bakesta King (Molly Cunningham) and Taron Patton (Bertha Holly); plus Artistic Associate Daniel Bryant (Jeremy Furlow). They are joined by Allen Gilmore (Bynum Walker), Scott Baity, Jr. (Reuben Mercer), Tracey Bonner (Mattie Campbell); Jasmine Randle (Zonia Loomis), Stephen Spencer (Rutherford Selig) and Taylar (Martha Pentecost).

The artistic staff for the production includes Jackie and Rick Penrod (Set Design), Christine Pasqaul (Costume Design), Benny Gomes (Lighting Design), Josh Horvath and Ray Nardelli (Sound Design), and Ann Meilahn (Properties Design). Congo Square Ensemble member Anthony Irons is Assistant Director. Production Stage Manager is Rose Marie Packer; Tareena Devona Wimbish is Assistant Stage Manager.
Playwright August Wilson authored Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Fences, Two Trains Running, Jitney, King Hedley II, and Radio Golf, among others.

These works explore the heritage and experience of African-Americans, decade-by-decade, over the course of the 20th Century and have been produced at regional theaters across the country and all over the world, as well as on Broadway. In 2003, Wilson made his professional stage debut in his one-man show, How I Learned What I Learned. His works garnered many awards including two Pulitzer Prizes for Fences (1987) and for The Piano Lesson (1990); a Tony Award for Fences and Great Britain's Olivier Award for Jitney. The cast recording of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom received a 1985 Grammy Award, and Wilson received a 1995 Emmy Award nomination for his screenplay adaptation of The Piano Lesson.

Wilson's early works included the one-act plays The Janitor, Recycle, The Coldest Day of the Year, Malcolm X, The Homecoming and the musical satire Black Bart and the Sacred Hills. He received many fellowships and awards, including Rockefeller and Guggenheim Fellowships in Playwrighting, the Whiting Writers Award and 2003 Heinz Award. He was awarded a 1999 National Humanities Medal by the President of the United States, and received numerous honorary degrees from colleges and universities, as well as the only high school diploma ever issued by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Wilson was an alumnus of New Dramatists, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a 1995 inductee into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and on Oct. 16, 2005, Broadway renamed the theater located at 245 West 52nd Street "The August Wilson Theatre." He was born and raised in the Hill District of Pittsburgh and lived in Seattle at the time of his death in 2005.

Derrick Sanders (Director) is Founding Artistic Director of Congo Square Theatre Company. His 2005 staging of the company's production of Seven Guitars garnered three Jeff Awards for Best Production, Direction and Ensemble. Other directing credits with Congo Square Theatre Company include Chadwick Boseman's Jeff nominated world premiere Deep Azure, Javon Johnson's The House That Jack Built, and Ali, for which he received a Black Theatre Alliance Award for direction. Additional directing credits include Why Black Men Play Basketball (ETA Creative Arts Theatre Co.), The Pawn and Next Stop Ellipse (International Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa), A Cryin' Shame (Kuntu Rep.), Kiwi Black (2002 Theodore Ward Playwriting winner), and The Island. Sanders has appeared in several Congo Square productions including A Soldier's Play, Playboy of the West Indies and the company's inaugural production of Wilson's The Piano Lesson. Sanders recently served as Assistant Director on the Goodman Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Huntington Theatre Company and Broadway stagings of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean and will make his off-Broadway directing debut this February with August Wilson's King Hedley II at New York's Signature Theater Company.

How To Get Tickets:

Congo Square Theatre Company's production of August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone comes to the Goodman Theatre's Owen Theatre Jan. 20 - Feb. 18. Previews are Saturday, Jan. 20 -Sunday, Jan. 28; press performances are Sunday, Jan. 28 at 6 p.m. and Opening Night, Monday, Jan. 29 at 8 p.m. Evening performances are Thursday - Saturday at 8 p.m. Matinee performances are Thursday at 10:30 a.m. (2/8 and 2/15 only); Saturday (except for 1/20) and Sunday (except for 1/28) at 2 p.m. Tickets are $15-$37 (Previews $13-$32). 2-for-1 tickets are available for Target Saturday Matinees thanks to the support of Target. For tickets call Goodman Theatre Box Office at 312.443-3800 or visit goodmantheatre.org. Groups of 10 or more phone 773.296.1108.

The award-winning Congo Square Theatre Company is an ensemble dedicated to artistic excellence. In producing definitive and transformative theater spawned from the African Diaspora, as well as from other world cultures, Congo Square Theatre Company seeks to establish itself as an institution of multicultural theater. For more information about Congo Square Theatre Company call 773.296.1108 or visit congosquaretheatre.org. Congo Square Theatre Company's 2006-2007 Season is sponsored by The Chicago Community Trust, the Joyce Foundation and Target. 2006-2007 Educational programs are made possible through the support of The Lloyd A. Fry Foundation. Congo Square Theatre Company's New Play Initiative is sponsored in part by Boeing and the Ford Foundation. -- www.goodmantheatre.org