Waiting for Lefty is a 1935 play by American playwright Clifford Odets. Consisting of a series of related vignettes, the entire play is framed by the meeting of cab drivers who are planning a labor strike. The framing uses the audience as part of the meeting.
While this was not Odets' first play, this was the first to be produced. It was staged by the Group Theatre, a New York theatre company founded by Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg, of which Odets was a member. The company was founded as a training ground for actors, and also to support new plays, especially those that mirrored the social and political climate of the day. Waiting for Lefty was the first real critical and popular success for the Group Theatre, appearing on Broadway as well as in cities around the United States. It had its British premiere at Unity Theatre, London in 1938, whose production so impressed a contingent of the American Group Theatre when they visited, that Unity Theatre was given the British rights to the play.
Read more about Waiting For Lefty: Plot, Production and Reception
Famous quotes containing the words waiting for and/or waiting:
“... often in the heat of noonday, leaning on a hoe, looking across valleys at the mountains, so blue, so close, my only conscious thought was, “How can I ever get away from here? How can I get to where they have books, where I can be educated?” I worked hard, always waiting for something to happen to change things. There came a time when I knew I must make them happen; that no one would do anything about it for me. And I did.”
—Belinda Jelliffe (1892–1979)
“What are we waiting for, gathered in the market-place?
The barbarians are to arrive today.”
—Constantine Cavafy (1863–1933)