Overview
Synopsis
Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for Best New Play, August: Osage County centers around the Weston family, brought together after their patriarch, world-class poet and alcoholic Beverly Weston, disappears. The matriarch, Violet, depressed and addicted to pain pills and “truth-telling,” is joined by her three daughters and their problematic lovers, who harbor their own deep secrets, her sister Mattie Fae and her family, well-trained in the Weston family art of cruelty, and finally, the observer of the chaos, the young Cheyenne housekeeper Johnna, who was hired by Beverly just before his disappearance. Holed up in the large family estate in Osage County, Oklahoma, tensions heat up and boil over in the ruthless August heat. Bursting with humor, vivacity, and intelligence, August: Osage County is is both dense and funny, vicious and compassionate, enormous and unstoppable.
Show Information
- Book
- Tracy Letts
- Category
- Play
- Age Guidance
- Mature Audiences (M)
- Number of Acts
- 3
- First Produced
- 2007
- Genres
- Dark Comedy
- Settings
- Unit/Single Set
- Time & Place
- august 2007, in a home outside pawhuska, oklahoma
- Cast Size
- medium
- Licensor
- Dramatists Play Service
- Ideal For
- professional theatre, large cast, College/University, Large Cast, Mature Audiences, Professional Theatre, Regional Theatre, Star Vehicle Female, Mostly Female Cast, Includes Mature Adult, Elderly, Adult, Young Adult Characters, Medium Cast
Context
A unique, expansive look at one dysfunctional family on the brink of self-destruction, Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County heralded a new kind of voice in the American theatre. The play emerged from Letts’ own personal experiences growing up in Oklahoma. His grandfather, like the character Beverly Weston, was a poet who committed suicide when Letts was 10. His grandmother, like Bev’s wife Violet, turned to prescription drug abuse, which had left a lasting effect on his family. From this
to read the context for August: Osage County and to unlock other amazing theatre resources!Plot
ACT I
Scene i
A few weeks have passed since the prologue, and Beverly Weston has gone missing. Violet’s sister Mattie Fae and her husband Charlie, along with Violet’s daughter Ivy, have all come to the house. Violet enters and tells the group that the sheriff, who was a classmate of her daughter Barbara’s in high school, said that Bev’s pontoon boat at the lake is missing. “That’s bad news about the boat,” says Charlie when Violet leaves. Alone with her mother, Ivy tells Violet
to read the plot for August: Osage County and to unlock other amazing theatre resources!Characters
| Name | Part Size | Gender | Vocal Part |
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Lead |
Female |
Spoken |
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Lead |
Female |
Spoken |
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Supporting |
Male |
Spoken |
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Supporting |
Female |
Spoken |
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Supporting |
Female |
Spoken |
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Supporting |
Female |
Spoken |
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Supporting |
Female |
Spoken |
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Supporting |
Male |
Spoken |
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Supporting |
Male |
Spoken |
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Supporting |
Female |
Spoken |
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Supporting |
Male |
Spoken |
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Featured |
Male |
Spoken |
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Featured |
Male |
Spoken |
Songs
A song with an asterisk (*) before the title indicates a dance number; a character listed in a song with an asterisk (*) by the character's name indicates that the character exclusively serves as a dancer in this song, which is sung by other characters.
Monologues
Scenes
Key Terms
A persistent and intense urge and/or physical dependency on a drug.
Also called “black comedy,” takes a pessimistic view of the world.
An award for an achievement in American journalism, literature, or music
Videos
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Themes, Symbols & Motifs
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