Jitney, in Italian at Arlene Mitchell Theater

August Wilson Like You've Never Heard Him Before: In Italian - Erik Piepenburg, The New York Times, April 2026

Cleveland, Ohio-based theatre company Powerful Long Ladder, in association with Spring Hill College, presents Italy's Sardegna Teatro and La Piccionaia's astounding production of Pulitzer Prize-winner August Wilson's Jitney, in Italian, at Arlene Mitchell Theater in Mobile, Alabama. PLL founder Terrence Spivey, former artistic director of Cleveland's historic Karamu House, is no stranger to Mobile. In 2022, the Clotilda Descendants Association commissioned him to write and direct the historical drama, An Ocean in My Bones in Africatown. Since then, he's returned several times, collaborating with Africatown Heritage House and the Mobile Museum of Arts. He returns to the city with two of Italy's premier theatre companies, bringing Wilson's critically acclaimed play, directed by Italy's respected filmmaker and theatre director Renzo Carbonera, with an all-Black Italian cast.

Italian Jitney made its U.S. debut in May 2026, earning standing ovations in three cities: St. Louis Black Repertory in St. Louis, MO; Powerful Long Ladder in Cleveland, OH; and Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company/August Wilson House in Pittsburgh, PA, the childhood home of August Wilson. The international collaboration gained attention from numerous media outlets, including The New York Times.

Set in Pittsburgh's historic Hill District in 1977, Jitney is the first Wilson play from his magnum opus, the American Century Cycle, a masterful ten-part series chronicling Black America decade by decade, to be translated into Italian. Three of his ten classics have been adapted to the big screen: Fences, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and The Piano Lesson.

The time is 1977, in Pittsburgh. Step into the world of one of the 20th century's greatest literary figures, playwright and Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson, where dreams dance with gripping realities inside a rundown, illegal gypsy cab (jitney) station in Pittsburgh's historic Hill District. The story unfolds against the looming threat of urban renewal as the city threatens to board up the jitney station and demolish the neighborhood block. Tension flares and secrets emerge when station owner Becker's estranged son, Booster, returns home from a 20-year prison sentence. His return and the city threat force his group of drivers, Turnbo, Youngblood, Doub and Fielding, to confront generational conflicts, shifting family dynamics, and their own economic survival.

August Wilson's Jitney, in Italian, directed by Renzo Carbonero

Featuring: Miguel Gobbo Diaz, Federico Lima Roque, Rosanna Sparapano, Tomiwa Samson Segun-Aina and Marcos Piacentini.

When: October 15-17, 2026

Dates & Showtimes

• Thursday, October 15 @ 7 pm
• Friday, October 16 @ 7 pm
• Saturday. October 17 @ 2 pm

Where: Arlene Mitchell Theater, 1495 Rimes Rd.

Mobile, Alabama 36608

Projected English Supertitles will be shown during the Jitney performances.

Visit the PLL website at www.powerfullongladder.com for tickets. Buy one ticket and bring a friend. You can also find the link to the digital program and the genesis of the Jitney translation by clicking The Wilson Project link on the website.

Sponsors: Mobile County Commission, Poarch Creek Foundation, and Clotilda Descendant Angels. We thank you.

Special Acknowledgment: Spring Hill College and Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company.

About Powerful Long Ladder Powerful Long Ladder is a 501c3 non-profit theatre company based in Cleveland, Ohio. Award-winning director and playwright Terrence Spivey, former artistic director of the historical Karamu House, founded it in 2018. The company's outreach program, The Ultimate Reach, an after-school program, is overseen by Spivey and Sharron Phearson Foxx, PLL Executive Assistant.

Mission To educate, inform, inspire, and entertain through classics, thought-provoking plays, and new works that reflect the universal conditions to enrich quality of life, unapologetically.

CONTACT: 216- 250-1559 Longladderinfo@gmail.com