Jitney (play) - Productions

Productions

Jitney was written in 1979 and first produced at the small Allegheny Repertory Theatre, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1982, when Wilson was able to take his mother to see it, traveling by jitney. That was followed by a separate production at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota. But Jitney then remained in Wilson's drawer while he sent a series of plays on to Broadway, until Eddie Gilbert, artistic director of the Pittsburgh Public Theater, read the 1979 script and asked to give it a full professional production.

In response, Wilson came back to Pittsburgh in 1996 to re-write it extensively for what can only be called its second premiere, directed by Marion McClinton -- the first Pittsburgh Cycle premiere not to be directed by Lloyd Richards. Over the next four years there were up to 20 productions nation-wide, many with the same core cast as in Pittsburgh, such as that at the Crossroads Theatre in New Jersey in spring 1997, directed by Walter Dallas, and in fall 1998, again directed by McClinton.

Along the way, Wilson worked further on it in spurts. Finally Jitney arrived in New York, off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre on April 25, 2000. It closed on September 10, but only because another play was coming in, when it moved to the Union Square Theater. The successful off-Broadway run is ironic, because Jitney is the only one of the 10 Pittsburgh Cycle plays not to appear on Broadway, presumably because Wilson's previous play had lost money, making investors leery. 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).

"Jitney" made up for not playing Broadway by going on to London at the National Theatre, Lyttelton Theatre, from October 16, 2001, through November 21, 2001, where it won the Olivier Award for best play of the year -- London's Tony. Directed by McClinton, it featured pretty much the same New York cast.

The play has been performed often in regional theater, for example at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., in 2001, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts in 2002, Ford's Theatre, Washington, D.C. in 2007, and the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C., in 2008.