![]() The character names alone tell you plenty: Mayor Superba (Letts), Mr. You might be put in mind of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” Or “Stranger Things.” Or a grown up version of “Lord of the Flies.” As is typical with Letts, there is much noir humor. ![]() And it’s another example of powerful Steppenwolf acting, not the showcase “August: Osage County” afforded, but a symphony of provincial low-burn tyranny, nonetheless. It’s not as if American democracy suddenly is feeling more secure. And that circling of the wagons is what you get to watch here, as performed by a cast with no weak links.įor a play written some five years ago now, the work still retains remarkable currency. Surely the one Black guy in the room is an ally? Maybe the business guys? Maybe the goofy retiree, played by Pendleton, benign until his character is threatened?īut the mayor, played by Letts with the menace of surety, knows how to execute the kind of collective power too much for any dentist. The clerk (dryly played by Mueller) appears to be on the dentist’s side. Letts has structured the work as a mystery: Reid’s dentist wants to know what has happened to the minutes of a previous meeting and why a potential whistleblower (played with earnest intensity by Barford) has disappeared. And, as the play progresses, the determination of this group not to allow themselves to be challenged grows more intense by the minute. That communal self-mythologizing is encapsulated in an origin story into which everyone buys, whether they are business people, retirees or the mayor himself. “The Minutes,” set in the council chamber of fictional Big Cherry (which feels like a town in Texas or Letts’ native Oklahoma), looks not at a group related by bloodlines, but by a collective determination not to examine a town’s own past. In that hit Broadway play (which became a movie), the playwright drew from his own familial and institutional history to suggest that the presence of a bunch of warring white academics on land once belonging to Native Americans was sufficiently delegitimizing as to rip apart a dysfunctional, modern-day family overly imbued with its own self-justifying mythology. Todd Freeman, Danny McCarthy, Jessie Mueller, Sally Murphy, Austin Pendleton, Jeff Still, the excellent newcomer Noah Reid as the town dentist and the scary playwright himself as the town mayor - Letts is continuing the theme that dominates his best-known play to date, “August: Osage County.” Though it is being performed at the Roundabout-operated Studio 54, The Minutes is not a Roundabout Theatre Company production. All ticket holders for performances March 19–April 1 will be contacted by their point of purchase about rescheduling or refunding their tickets.In this play - which features a Steppenwolf-heavy ensemble cast comprised of Ian Barford, Blair Brown, Cliff Chamberlain, K. The production features scenic design by David Zinn, costume design by Ana Kuzmanic, lighting design by Brian MacDevitt, sound design and original music by André Pluess, hair and wig design by Tom Watson, dramaturgy by Edward Sobel, and casting by Caparelliotis Casting. The play takes a look at the inner workings of a city council meeting and the hypocrisy, greed, and ambition that bubble to the surface when a newcomer to the small town of Big Cherry starts to ask the wrong questions. Shapiro directs the work, which premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2017 under her helm. Schitt’s Creek star Noah Reid joins them in his Broadway debut.Īnna D. Todd Freeman, and Austin Pendleton, plus Cliff Chamberlain, Danny McCarthy, Sally Murphy, and Jeff Still. ![]() As previously announced, the majority of the Broadway cast will return this spring, including Tony-winning playwright and actor Letts, Tony winners Blair Brown and Jessie Mueller, Tony nominees Ian Barford, K. The Minutes began previews in February 2020, but never officially opened due to the pandemic interruption. ![]() ![]() Previews for the Tracy Letts play will now begin April 2 instead of March 19. The Broadway premiere of The Minutes will return to the Main Stem two weeks later than originally scheduled. ![]()
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