Jitney by August Wilson is set in the fall of 1977 Pittsburgh’s Hill District and follows a group of men who run an unlicensed taxi service facing closure due to urban renewal. When the owner’s son, Booster, returns after 20 years in prison, tensions surface, exploring themes of community, family, redemption, and the struggles of Black men in America.
In my adaptation of Jitney, my design is driven by the theme of ownership, what it means to claim space, to hold onto it, and to pass it forward.
Set in the 1970s, the Jitney station occupies a former Black-owned barbershop from the 1910s/20s, drawing on the afterlife of spaces where closeness did not equal control and ownership was never fully secure.
By layering these histories, the set becomes a record of generational ownership, a space shaped by labor, survival and inheritance, carrying what was built and what refuses to be taken.
