Tracy Letts

Tracy Letts moved to Chicago at age 20 and spent 11 years working with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the Famous Door Theatre. He became a founding member of the Bang Bang Spontaneous Theatre ensemble alongside Greg Kotis, Michael Shannon, Paul Dillon, and Amy Pietz. In 1991 he wrote the play Killer Joe, which premiered in 1993 at the Next Lab Theater in Evanston, Illinois, before transferring to the 29th Street Rep in New York City. He later wrote the plays Man from Nebraska and The Minutes. His play August: Osage County premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago on June 28, 2007, and opened on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre on December 4, 2007, later transferring to the Music Box Theatre in 2008. The production ran until June 28, 2009, and won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play.

Letts also built a career as a stage actor, appearing in numerous Steppenwolf productions including Picasso at the Lapin Agile (1994) by Steve Martin. He made his Broadway acting debut in the 2012 revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Booth Theatre, winning the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. He later appeared in the Broadway revival of All My Sons (2019) alongside Annette Bening at the American Airlines Theatre. In 2022 he appeared in the Broadway production of his play The Minutes.

On television, Letts appeared in series including Seinfeld, Home Improvement, The Drew Carey Show, Profiler, Judging Amy, Strong Medicine, The District, Early Edition, and Prison Break during the 1990s and early 2000s. From 2013 to 2014 he portrayed Senator Andrew Lockhart in Homeland. He later appeared in Divorce (2016), The Sinner (2018), and Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (2022).

Letts has also worked extensively in film. His credits include The Big Short (2015), Wiener-Dog (2016), Christine (2016), Elvis & Nixon (2016), Indignation (2016), and Imperium (2016). In 2017 he appeared in The Lovers, The Post, and Lady Bird. He portrayed Henry Ford II in Ford v Ferrari (2019) and appeared in Little Women (2019).

In addition to acting and playwriting, Letts has written screenplays for film adaptations of his plays Bug, Killer Joe, and August: Osage County. He also wrote the screenplay for the thriller The Woman in the Window.