by Leah Flowers
15 September 2024
American playwright Tracy Letts has been called the “master of the American Macabre” (Green) and for good reason. He first came to prominence when he wrote the raw and violent plays Killer Joe and Bug, which were both adapted into films, with Letts as the screenwriter. His subsequent plays moved away from the “in-your-face” style of writing that his early work contained. Letts has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama two times – once for Man from Nebraska in 2003 (Craine) and again for The Minutes in 2018 (“Finalist: The Minutes”). He won the Pulitzer for August: Osage County in 2007. Aside from writing plays and films, Letts also is known for his acting on stage and screen. He has been a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s ensemble since 2002 and has appeared on the Steppenwolf stage in many productions including: The Pillowman, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Three Days of Rain (“Tracy Letts,” Concord). He can be seen in the movies U.S. Marshals (1998), Guinevere (1999), and The Big Short (2015). TV appearances include: Homeland TV (2013), The Drew Carey Show TV (1995), and Seinfeld TV (1989) (Craine).
His writing style features “real-life characters who do not always express themselves poetically” (Craine). Author Thomas Fahy says of Letts’s writing, “With a musician’s sense of timing, Letts shifts between humor and heartache, silence and sound, and the mundane and the poetic” and that he is able to move seamlessly between different atmospheres, from “the stifling quiet of small-town Ohio to the racial tensions of urban Chicago.” Columnist William Friedkin says of Letts, “[H]e’s as straight up, loyal, and honest as anyone I’ve known. To write as he does, you need to be aware of the thin line between good and evil in all of us.”
Notable Works as a Playwright:
1991 Killer Joe
1996 Bug
2003 The Man from Nebraska
2007 August: Osage County
2009 Three Sisters (adaptation)
2016 Mary Page Marlowe
2017 Linda Vista
Select Awards:
2005 Chicago Public Library Foundation – 21st Century Award
2008 Pulitzer Prize – Drama “August: Osage County”
2008 Drama Desk Award – Outstanding Play “August: Osage County”
2008 Tony Award – Best Play “August: Osage County”
2013 Tony Award – Best Leading Actor
Source(s):
Craine, Anthony G.. “Tracy Letts”. Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 21 July 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tracy-Letts.
“Finalist: The Minutes, by Tracy Letts.” The Pulitzer Prizes, Columbia University, https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/tracy-letts-0.
Green, Jesse. “Review: ‘The Minutes,’ an Official History of American Horror.” Critic’s Pick, The New York Times, New York Times Company, 17 April 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/17/theater/the-minutes-review.html.
“Tracy Letts.” Concord Theatricals, https://www.concordtheatricals.com/a/1857/tracy-letts.