Tracy Letts

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Tracy Letts

Born July 4, 1965 (1965-07-04) (age 42)
Flag of the United States Tulsa, Oklahoma

Tracy Letts (born July 4, 1965[1] in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright and actor. He has been an ensemble member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company since 2002. [2]

Contents

[edit] Life and work

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Letts is the son of the late one-time college professor, later actor Dennis Letts and best selling author Billie Letts.[3] His brother Shawn is a jazz musician and composer. Tracy grew up in Durant, Oklahoma and he graduated from Durant High School. After graduating in the early 80s he moved to Dallas. He stayed there for two years, while he waited tables and worked in telemarketing, and he also got the part in a one-man play, Jerry Flemmons' O Dammit!, which was part of a New Playwrights Series sponsored by the Southern Methodist University.

Letts moved to Chicago at the age of 20, and worked for the next 11 years at Steppenwolf and Famous Door. In 1991, a time when he had an alcohol problem, he wrote the play Killer Joe. (He would later join Alcoholics Anonymous, and has been sober ever since.) Two years later, the play premiered at the Next Lab Theater in Chicago and then at 29th Street Rep in NYC. Since then, Killer Joe has been performed in at least 15 countries in 12 languages.[1]

His mother Billie Letts has said about his writing, "I try to be upbeat and funny. Everybody in Tracy's stories gets naked or dead."[2] Every one of the three plays he's written is about people struggling with moral and spiritual questions. He says he has drawn inspiration from the plays of Tennessee Williams and the novels of William Faulkner and Jim Thompson. Letts considers sound to be a very strong story telling tool for theater. [3]

[edit] Plays

[edit] Writer

[edit] Actor

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Writer

  • 2007 Bug (screenplay)

[edit] Actor

Film

Television

[edit] Awards

[edit] References

  1. ^ Theaterszene Köln: Stücke
  2. ^ Tracy Letts's Productions at Steppenwolf | Steppenwolf Theatre Company
  3. ^ "Dennis Letts, 73, a Professor Who Became Broadway Actor, Dies", Associated Press, New York Times, 2008-02-25. Retrieved on 2008-03-08. 

[edit] External links

Languages