Odets' stage directions call for the play to be performed on a bare stage, with some actors planted in the audience to react to key moments. The characters often directly address the audience, in an effort to break the fourth wall and incite the viewer to action. In each scene the other characters continue to be dimly present in a circle around the current characters, illustrating their effect on the events unfolding before them. Odets claimed that he took this form from minstrel shows. Critics have suggested that it is more likely that Odets was inspired by agitprop productions, which were gaining popularity in the early 1930s.[4]
Waiting For Lefty premiered on January 6, 1935, for an audience of 1,400 at the Civic Repertory Theatre,[8] at a benefit for New Theatre magazine. The play cost about eight dollars to produce.[1]: 315 The audience was greatly moved and met the play with acclaim; the cast that night took 28 curtain calls.[3]
The play opened on Broadway at the Longacre Theater on March 26, 1935, and continued for 144 performances.[9] It was directed by Odets and Sanford Meisner, and its cast included Odets, Meisner, Elia Kazan and Lee J. Cobb.[3] It moved to the Belasco Theater in September of that year for 24 performances in repertoire with Odets's play Awake and Sing!, where its cast included Luther Adler.[10]
Following the initial run, hundreds of theatre groups requested the rights to perform the piece.[7] The play resonated with both the general public and the artistic community. Its simple staging allowed it to become an affordable and popular production for union halls and small theatres across the country.[11] The play resulted in widespread praise and recognition for Odets. Such was Odets' fame that his next play to be produced, Awake and Sing!, was billed as a piece "by the author of Waiting for Lefty ".[7]
During the opening performance of Waiting for Lefty in Boston in 1935, four cast members were placed under arrest due to Boston's strict censorship laws.[12]
Waiting for Lefty had its British premiere in 1936 at the Unity Theatre. The production so impressed a visiting contingent of the American Group Theatre that they gave Unity Theatre the British rights to the play.
In Australia, the New Theatre in Sydney[13] and Melbourne's New Theatre both staged the play in 1936.[14]
In February and March 2013, a revival of the play was produced at the White Bear Theatre in Kennington. It was the first time in more than 30 years that the play had been performed in London.
