Brad Powell has been contributing to the performing arts in Hawaii since 1959. He’s taught speech and drama in Hawaii’s public schools, spent 20 years as executive producer at Hawaii State Educational Television and produced entertainment for Hawaii visitors.
Powell became artistic director of TAG — The Actors’ Group in 1999.
It’s now 2025, and he is still enjoying the process of selecting a cast, assembling a production crew and directing the rehearsals that knit actors and tech crew together into the show audiences will see on stage.
He also enjoys the opportunity to learn about things in the story that aren’t in the script. Directing TAG’s upcoming production of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” which opens Friday and runs through Feb. 9, has been one of those learning opportunities. He said he sat down with the entire cast and had cast members Derrick Brown and Shervelle Hannah discuss hidden religious meanings in the work. “The show is not about (African American) religious history but there’s a character that is very active in a Pentecostal church, which is the result of (traditional) voodoo and hoodoo, and Christianity,” Powell explained.
“All that was totally new to me. I didn’t really know much of that, but the wonderful thing about directing this play is that I have these people in the play who know it … . I’ve learned so much and I’ve relied on them a great deal,” he said. “I’m having Shervelle work with the woman who plays (the character) on exactly how a Pentecostal minister or participant would recite the Bible verse that she does in the play.
“I can’t wait to see the finished product, which is funny for me, because I’m supposed to be directing it.”
“Joe Turner” is the second chronologically in August Wilson’s 10-play “Pittsburgh Cycle,” with each depicting the experiences of African Americans in a different decade of the 20th century. The story takes place in 1911.
The “Joe Turner” in the title is a reference to a practice in the American South of arresting Black men for minor offenses — sometimes through entrapment — and then holding them to work as slaves on chain gangs.
Brown plays Harold Loomis, a man who did seven years on a chain gang and has now come north looking for the wife who deserted their daughter during his enslavement. Abigail London and Maleeyah Louis portray Loomis’ daughter, Zonia, on alternate performances.
Hannah and Dre West have central roles as Pittsburgh boarding house owners Bertha and Seth Holly. Suani Bowers, Derrick Lawson, Elisha Louis, Ken Marcus, Sean Nix and Lee Washington complete the cast.
Powell notes that some cast members are stage veterans and others are first- timers for whom “Joe Turner” is their stage debut.
“We have kids, 11 years old, who have never been on a stage before, and an (older) actor from Chicago — I don’t know how old he is — who is with the Black theater there,” he said. “We’ve got several of our regular people and a young guy in his 20s, Lee Washington, from New York and L.A., who is really, really good but has never acted on stage. It’s so much fun working with them.”
The current 2024-25 theater season makes it 20 years since TAG made the commitment to include plays by African American playwrights on its schedule; it has presented one each year ever since.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the commitment, TAG is doing the first three plays in Wilson’s “Pittsburgh Cycle.” TAG opened the season with “Gem of the Ocean” in September. The third play, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” opens May 16.
Powell said TAG is proud of that commitment but is also “excited about the fact that we can also choose wonderful plays like the next play after (“Joe Turner”), ‘My Name is Asher Lev,’ about a Jewish artist in New York. It’s a wonderful play.”
Based on the 1972 novel by Chaim Potok, “My Name is Asher Lev” opens March 21 at TAG’s Iwilei playhouse, named — of course — after Powell.
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‘Joe Turner’s Come And Gone’
Presented by TAG — The Actors’ Group
>> Where: Brad Powell Theatre, 650 Iwilei Road, Suite 101
>> When: 7:30 p.m. Friday; continues at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays, through Feb. 9
>> Tickets: $32 general, $27 seniors, $22 students and military
>> Info: taghawaii.net or 808-722-6941
