Pittsburgh Playwrights staging August Wilson's 'Jitney' at his childhood home

Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company will join in celebrating the revitalization of the August Wilson House by staging Wilson’s “Jitney” at the historic property in Pittsburgh’s Lower Hill.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright’s childhood home has been renovated as a community art center. Grand opening activities will be held Saturday, with Friday’s opening performance of “Jitney” already sold out.

The production, which will be staged in the back yard of the property at 1717 Bedford Ave., will continue at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 5 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 18.

“We’re excited to do (Wilson’s) work in the Hill District where he was born and behind his childhood home,” said Mark Clayton Southers, PPTCO founder and producing artistic and executive director, who is directing the production. “It’s an honor to be there, and I think people will be elated to see the play there.”

Written in 1979, “Jitney” is set in 1977 in a rundown gypsy cab station in Pittsburgh. The play depicts the lives of men who drive the unofficial, unlicensed taxis at a time when regular cabs didn’t service the city’s Hill District.

“We have other nationalities coming on the rise within the last 10-15 years, but Pittsburgh has always been pretty much a white and Black city,” Southers said. “We’re all Americans, but there are distinct differences within our backgrounds.”

The play resonates differently with Black and white viewers, he said.

“For the African American audiences, there’s a familiarity,” he said. “These men represent people they can relate to in their community, because even though Lyft and Uber are on the rise, jitneys still remain a strong staple within the African American community for people who don’t own vehicles.

“People rely on them to get to work, to get to their doctor’s appointments, to do their shopping, for whatever reasons,” he said.

Jitneys are still in such demand, he said, that many people have the drivers’ phone numbers memorized.

“When they see these people on stage, they can relate to them as, oh, that’s my uncle or that’s my dad or that’s my cousin or brother. My grandfather used to be a jitney driver,” Southers said.

White audience members will relate in a different way, he said.

“For the Caucasian community, there’s a difference and that’s OK,” Southers said. “They can see themselves as a fly on the wall for Black culture. Sitting in the audience and watching these men on stage, it’s something they haven’t been privy to, to sit in a jitney station and listen to the banter and the things that go on.

“So it’s entertaining and it’s also educational,” he said. “It helps people have a better appreciation for Black life.”

Familiar territory

Cast in the role of jitney station owner Jim Becker is Sala Udin, Pittsburgh Public Schools board president and former Pittsburgh councilman.

“August actually wrote this role for him, so this will be his third time playing it,” Southers said. “He played it back in the ‘70s, he played it in our 2010 production, and he’s playing in this production. We’re excited about that.”

“This play is familiar territory because I still live in the Hill District where August and I grew up,” said Udin, 79, who began acting in 1968. “We went to grade school together and I pass his birth home frequently.”

Other cast members are Jonathan Berry as Booster, Chuck Timbers as Doub, Boykin Anthony as Philmore, Elexa Hanner as Rena, Roosevelt Watts as Shealy, Richard McBride as Youngblood, Mike Traylor as Fielding and Les Howard as Turnbo.

Productions of “Jitney” have been PPTCO’s best-attended offerings, Southers said, adding that the company likes to be site-specific when staging Wilson’s plays.

In 2019, PPTCO staged Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean” at 1839 Wylie Ave., the address of Aunt Esther’s house in the play. The backyard of the August Wilson House hosted PPTCO productions of “Seven Guitars” in 2016 and “King Hedley II” in 2018.

General admission seating for “Jitney” is $42.50, $32.50 for seniors and Hill District residents and $27.50 for students and artists. Tickets are available at pghplaywrights.org.

In case of inclement weather, the production will move to a nearby indoor venue.

Information and tickets for grand opening activities at the August Wilson House are available at eventbrite.com.

Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington will join Constanza Romero Wilson, Wilson’s widow, at the Saturday celebration. Washington acted in screen adaptations of Wilson’s “Fences” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”

The August Wilson House project was led by The Daisy Wilson Artist Community, a nonprofit named for Wilson’s mother.