Drama, African

Jitney

Name: Jitney
Author: August Wilson
ISBN: 9781585673704

by August Wilson, Marion Isaac McClinton

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Synopsis

A major work by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner August Wilson. A thoroughly revised version of a play August Wilson first wrote in 1979, Jitney was produced in New York for the first time in the spring of 2000, winning rave reviews and the accolade of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award as the best play of the year. Set in the 1970s in Pittsburghs Hill District, and depicting gypsy cabdrivers who serve black neighborhoods, Jitney is the seventh in Wilsons 10-play cycle (one for each decade) on the black experience in twentieth century America. He writes not about historical events or the pathologies of the black community, but, as he says, about the unique particulars of black culture . . . I wanted to place this culture onstage in all its richness and fullness and to demonstrate its ability to sustain us . . . through profound moments in our history in which the larger society has thought less of us than we have thought of ourselves.

About the Author, August Wilson

August Wilson has twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, for his plays Fences and The Piano Lesson. All of his plays have received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, and Fences received the Tony Award as well. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the recipient of Rockefeller and Guggenheim fellowships, the Whiting Writers Award, the 1999 National Humanities Medal awarded by the President, and numerous honorary degrees.