Clifford Odets, Waiting For Lefty

Nils Clausson (University of Regina)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1935

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

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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 place or union hall (Clurman 141). It now appears that the play was in fact written

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2935 words

Citation: Clausson, Nils. "Waiting For Lefty". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 August 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8666, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Clifford Odets, Waiting For Lefty

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