In the final scene, Miss Daisy is in a nursing home for increasing memory loss; but is lucid enough to tell Hoke, who has come to visit her, that he is her best friend.
His grandmother, a Jewish woman who lived in Atlanta during the 1960s, had to give up driving after a car accident, and hired Coleman, who drove her for 25 years.
He set his three plays in the context of major events that happened in Atlanta: Parade, based on the 1913–1915 trial and eventual lynching of Leo Frank; The Last Night of Ballyhoo, following the events at the city's 1939 Gone With the Wind premiere; and Driving Miss Daisy, addressing the impacts associated with the 1958 Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple bombing and the city’s dinner honoring Martin Luther King Jr.’s October 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.
[4] Directed by Ron Lagomarsino, the role of Daisy was also played by Rochelle Oliver and Frances Sternhagen, replacing Dana Ivey.
Ellen Burstyn, Charlotte Rae, and Dorothy Loudon also played Miss Daisy as replacements.
This production starred Joan Plowright as Miss Daisy, with Robert Guillaume as Hoke and Saul Rubinek as Boolie.
[13] The play opened on October 25, 2010, at the John Golden Theatre; the run was later extended and Driving Miss Daisy closed on April 9, 2011,[14] after 20 previews and 180 performances.
[20][21] Uhry adapted his play into the screenplay for a 1989 film of the same name starring Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman and Dan Aykroyd.