August Wilson's Jitney

Jitney is the eighth play in August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle. It takes place in The Hill District of Pittsburgh in 1977, in a gypsy cab station, during Pittsburgh’s period of so-called “urban renewal.” As the city tries to shut down businesses -- including the cab station -- to make way for new buildings, we meet five gypsy cab drivers struggling to survive. Wilson’s ensemble piece puts human faces to the process of gentrification seizing the United States, telling of the specific human struggles of Becker, Youngblood, Turnbo, Fielding, and Doub as they cling to a nostalgic past while reaching for an uncertain future.  Before Uber and Lyft, there were jitney cabs — unlicensed, for-hire vehicles that sprang up to serve inner-city neighborhoods that white commercial taxis preferred to bypass. We meet the crew of drivers hanging out in a rundown jitney cab office in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. There is plenty of humanity in this group portrait: As they await…