Waiting for Lefty

Waiting for Lefty is a 1935 play by the American playwright Clifford Odets. Consisting of a series of related vignettes, the entire play is framed by the meeting of cab drivers who are planning a labor strike. The framing uses the audience as part of the meeting. While this was not Odets' first play, this was the first to be produced. It was staged by the Group Theatre, a New York theatre company founded by Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg, of which Odets was a member. It had its British premiere in 1938 at the Unity Theatre, whose production so impressed a visiting contingent of the American Group Theatre that Unity Theatre was given the British rights to the play. Adapted by Gladys Thomas with the title The Time is Now.