After making her Broadway debut last month, Taraji P. Henson is opening up about the challenges of performing for a live audience.
The Golden Globe winner, who plays Bertha Holly in the current revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone at the Barrymore Theatre, recently commented on director Debbie Allen‘s pre-recorded intermission announcement asking audience members to silence their phones and behave (such recordings are a common practice at Broadway shows).
“Theater is not for punks, okay? Theater is for the strong,” she told Vulture. “You have to have discipline. I love that it’s a living organism.”
Henson continued, “You can’t do theater and forget the audience. That’s why every show is different. You’ve got to work through it. That cell phone ringing might make me throw my line. But I got to stay in character.”
With 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.
Cedric the Entertainer, Taraji P. Henson, Constanza Romero Wilson and Debbie Allen during the opening night curtain call for the Broadway revival of August Wilson’s ‘Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’ at The Barrymore Theatre on April 25, 2026 in New York City (Bruce Glikas/WireImage)
“Before, I didn’t have the space on my schedule,” she explained of why she chose now to do Broadway. “Also, it’s Debbie Allen. I’m no fool. I know they’re making the film. That’s how they got me. Debbie was like, ‘We going to do the film, but child, we got to do this play first.’”
Henson added, “I 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, ‘Tell me which character, which play.’ And we both got busy.”
Black previously produced Fences (2016), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) and The Piano Lesson (2024).
