Jitney (play)
| Jitney | |
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| Written by | August Wilson |
| Date premiered | 1982 |
| Place premiered | Allegheny Repertory Theatre Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Original language | English |
| Series | The Pittsburgh Cycle |
| Genre | Drama |
| Setting | 1977, a worn-down gypsy cab station in Pittsburgh's Hill District |
Jitney is a play by August Wilson. The eighth in his "Pittsburgh Cycle", this play is set in a worn-down gypsy cab station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in early autumn 1977. The play premiered on Broadway in 2017.
Jitney was written in 1979 and first produced at the small Allegheny Repertory Theatre, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1982. When Wilson took his mother to see that production they arrived by jitney. That was followed by a separate production at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota. After Wilson had a series of plays produced on Broadway, Eddie Gilbert, artistic director of the Pittsburgh Public Theater, read the 1979 script and asked to produce it.
In response, Wilson returned to Pittsburgh in 1996 re-writing it extensively for what is referred to as its professional premiere, which was directed by Marion McClinton. This was the first Pittsburgh Cycle premiere not to be directed by Lloyd Richards. Over the next four years there were up to 20 productions nationwide, many with the same core cast as in Pittsburgh, including the 1997 production at the Crossroads Theatre in New Jersey, which was directed by Walter Dallas, and the 1998 production at Boston's Huntington Theatre Company, directed by McClinton.
Wilson continued working on the script. Jitney opened Off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre on April 25, 2000 and closed on September 10, because another play was coming in. The play next moved to the Union Square Theatre on September 19, 2000 where it closed on January 28, 2001.Jitney ran successfully Off-Broadway, and was the only one of the 10 Pittsburgh Cycle plays not to appear on Broadway, possibly because Wilson's previous play had lost money, making investors cautious. Directed by Marion McClinton, the cast featured four actors who had been with it almost continuously since 1996: Anthony Chisholm (Fielding), Paul Butler (Becker), Willis Burks (Shealy) and Stephen McKinley Henderson (Turnbo).
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