When "August: Osage County" made its way to Broadway from Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, producer Jeffrey Richards kept the original cast. While other projects on the Great White Way preferred putting big names and movie stars in the lead roles, keeping the homegrown cast in "Osage" paid off.
Steppenwolf Theatre Company is committed to its members with a true ensemble atmosphere in which all the artists support one another. Sometimes the playwrights will pen their works with specific actors from the company in mind.
Tracy Letts, the playwright of "August: Osage County" is one of those Steppenwolf members. He won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for the play. Entertainment Weekly also named “Osage” Best Play of the Decade. It won a Drama Desk Award, Drama League Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, and New York Drama Critics' Circle Award.
"August: Osage County" premiered in Chicago in the summer of 2007, the perfect time of year for a play about a family reunion -- except this family reunion isn't about pie and lemonade and reminiscing about the good old days. In Act One, the family has gathered all except for their patriarch, who has been missing for several days. The matriarch, who is a widow by Act Two, is addicted to prescription medication. Everyone in the family seems to be dealing with their own severe dysfunction, from substance abuse to incest, which often leads to confrontations and even violence.
Times Online listed it in their "Best Theatre of the Decade" as well. "Cancer, incest, suicide, drug abuse and parental cruelty -- and it's a comedy? Well, of a kind. Tracy Letts's blisteringly, blackly funny account of a family reunion in rural Oklahoma felt like a kind of despairing Chekhov of the plains. Yet along with its emotional violence and unflinching honesty, it remained sympathetic to its characters."
In addition to the Chicago and Broadway productions, "Osage" has debuted in the UK, Israel, Puerto Rico, Australia, and Argentina. The play is currently touring in the United States. (Click here for tour schedule.)
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"House on the hill" by Peter Griffin
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