Michelle Obama was nowhere to be found on the red carpet for opening night of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t there proudly watching!
The former First Lady of the United States, 62, stepped out solo in New York City on Saturday, April 25 for opening night of the Broadway production at the Barrymore Theatre.
After the red carpet for opening night closed, a van pulled up from which Michelle emerged, immediately swarmed by umbrellas shielding her from cameras (and also the NYC spring downpour) as she walked right into the venue, dressed in a black satin pantsuit with a purple clutch.
Michelle and her husband Barack Obama are co-producers of the show, a revival of the classic 1986 August Wilson play, which stars Cedric the Entertainer and Taraji P. Henson. The play first opened on Broadway in 1989, before being revived in 2009 and now 2026.
An official description for the show reads: “Set in Pittsburgh in 1911 during a pivotal era of migration and transformation, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone centers on Seth and Bertha Holly (Cedric and Taraji) who run a warm, orderly boardinghouse for those navigating uncertain paths.”
“But when a mysterious man named Herald Loomis (Joshua Boone) arrives with his young daughter, the stillness of the house begins to shift. This timeless American classic is a profoundly moving story of personal awakening, collective memory, and the quiet power of human connection.”
© Getty ImagesThe show is currently slated for a strictly limited engagement, scheduled to close on July 26. And the decision to produce this revival is a particularly special one for the former presidential couple.
Back in 2009, after being named President of the United States for his first term, Barack had told press that he’d promised Michelle he would take her to a Broadway show to celebrate. And that came true a few months later, when the couple spent date night at, appropriately enough, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.
© InstagramErnie Hudson and LaTanya Richardson Jackson starred in the 2009 production. “I am taking my wife to New York City because I promised her during the campaign that I would take her to a Broadway show after it was all finished,” a statement from the then-President read for press. Their appearance at the show even served to double ticket sales at the time.
Speaking with People last year, the Becoming author outlined how date nights with her husband go now. “We’ve been married 32, 33 [years]… I always forget. Sorry, honey,” she quipped at first. “When we’re both happy about date night, we’re at home. We are not getting dressed. We just have a nice dinner, candles lit, music, we talk.”
© Getty Images“We don’t talk for the whole day, because we’re in the house together all day, right?” she explained. “We work from home. So when we are going to have a really special night, it’s like, ‘Don’t talk to me. Save it for dinner.’ He’ll be like, ‘Did you talk to the girls?’ ‘I did, but we’re not going to talk about it until date night.'”
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