Composition and Early Stage History
Clifford Odets’ long one-act play Waiting for Lefty was
inspired by a strike by New York City taxi drivers and was first
performed by the Group Theatre at the Civic Repertory Theatre in
New York City on January 5, 1935, as a benefit for New
Theatre magazine, before a pro-labour audience of about 1400,
nearly all of whom were receptive to Odets’ impassioned call to
arms for the working class in the middle of the Great Depression.
There is a legend that the play was written in response to a
contest, sponsored by the New Theatre League and announced in the
September 1934 issue of New Theatre, calling for politically
engaged plays that could be performed in any meeting p…
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Citation: Clausson, Nils. "Waiting For Lefty". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 August 2012 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8666, accessed 23 November 2024.]
