During the Elizabethan era, traveling troupes of actors would perform in different towns throughout the United Kingdom.

In 1923, inspired by these theatrical artists, Horace Bushnell Cheney (1899-1930) and his wife Alice Keating Cheney (1894-1981) established the Jitney Players in the United States.

The Tradition of Traveling

The Cheneys, along with a company of actors, set forth to perform theatrical productions across the United States. Their unique form of transportation did not involve walking by foot or horse-drawn carriage. Transportation took the form of a truck that opened up and converted into a stage. After a New York Times reporter coined the truck a "jitney" the troupe would become known as the Jitney Players.

Bushnell Cheney (his professional name), and his wife Alice, established this troupe after he graduated from Yale. Originally, Bushnell Cheney  selected Harvard graduates as the first group of actors perhaps because he was impressed by the Harvard Workshop '47. This class taught a wide variety of theatrical skills that would be crucial on the long road trips ahead.

During inclement weather or if an opportunity occurred, the Jitney Players performed in a theater. The jitney truck never made it to the west coast for fear that the truck would not  be able to traverse the mountains.

The troupe attracted many actors to their ranks including Ethel Barrymore, Hume Cronyn,  Shepperd Strudwick, and Monty Woolley.

The Jitney Players Records in the Billy Rose Theatre Division of The New York Public Library

The troupe was fortunate that  Alice Keating Cheney documented the Jitney Players during the traveling troupe's active years. The collection holds scrapbooks,  clippings, letters (mostly from aspiring actors), playbills, and  photographs.

The photographs include pictures of some of the actors  who performed, the jitney traveling truck; and "The Little Red House," a house for performers on the  Cheney's property in Madison, CT., and pictures of the Cheney's family and friends.   

In 1930, upon the death of Bushnell Cheney, the traveling troupe of Jitney players wandered no more.

This blog was inspired by the Jitney Players records, the Billy Rose Theatre Division.