LOS ANGELES – Nija Okoro is dancing in her dressing room backstage at the Mark Taper Forum. She has on a vintage red leather jacket and says she is channeling Foxy Brown and the old Sanford & Son TV show to get into the spirit of playing a character from the 1970s.

“I just love putting on costumes like this because it instantly just puts you in the right frame of mind for the period,” said Okoro.

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Okoro is currently on the national Broadway tour of August Wilson's Jitney. She was born in New York and grew up in the Bronx. She got bit by the acting bug at the age of 10 and went from the Harlem School of the Arts to the legendary Fame school, LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts. She then received a merit-based full scholarship to the Juilliard School where she graduated in 2008.

She walks up to her cast mate, Francois Battiste, and gives him a hug.

 

 

 

“We went to Juilliard together. We called it jail yard,” said Okoro.

Eventually Okoro made her way to Los Angeles, but like many actors, she struggled at first waiting, and trying to find her way in a new town.

“It took me years to get used to L.A. if I’m being honest. Because I'm from New York, I never drove before, didn't know how to drive. I was missing my family. And it's not easy to be an artist out here. It was just pretty slow for me for a while,” said Okoro.

But it's not slow for Okoro anymore. She has appeared in numerous television shows and was recently nominated for an Ovation Award for her performance and another August Wilson play Two Trains Running at the Matrix Theater. She also performed in Wilson's Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom at the Mark Taper stage.

“This is actually my favorite theater that I've ever worked at. Don't tell anybody else,” said Okoro.

Jitney first opened in 1982, and received the 2017 Tony Award for Best Revival Of A Play on Broadway. Jitney is a playful and poignant drama set in the 1970s that follows a group of African American men in a gypsy cab station in Pittsburgh, trying to eke out a living by driving unlicensed cabs - or jitneys. When the city threatens to board up the business and the boss’ son returns from prison, tempers flare, potent secrets are revealed, and the fragile threads binding this makeshift family together threatens to come undone.  The play gives an intimate view of working class people struggling to keep afloat in a time of great social change.

Jitney was the first play to be written by August Wilson in his 10-play cycle exploring the 20th century African American experience.

“Being in an August Wilson play is a huge blessing. I feel like every single one of his plays, you walk away from and you connect to at least one character, even people who are not from the culture, they all can say, I know what that's like to be betrayed like that, or I know what it's like to love that way,” said Okoro.

Now Okoro lives in Los Angeles, and she is missing New York I'm little less.

“I get to dress up for the theater and not have to freeze my tuckus off! It’s still weird to me not to have snow during the holidays though. But I’ll live,” said Okoro.

The beauty our warm winters and award winning theater life is something we can all appreciate.

Presented by Center Theatre Group, Jitney is directed by Tony Award winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson. The cast includes, in alphabetical order, Francois Battiste, Harvy Blanks, Amari Cheatom, Anthony Chisholm, Brian D. Coats, Steven Anthony Jones, Nija Okoro, Keith Randolph Smith, and Ray Anthony Thomas. The play will be at The Mark Taper Forum through December 29.

For more information about the play and tickets visit the website here.