Tracy Letts

Born in Tulsa and raised in Durant, Oklahoma, Tracy Letts struggled through an awkward childhood fraught with familial strife and generational trauma. His grandfather’s suicide and his grandmother’s subsequent pill addiction when Letts was just 10 years old haunted him throughout his early career as a struggling actor, and would eventually become the framework for his Pulitzer Prize-winning opus August: Osage County. Letts’s parents, writers and academics, encouraged his creative side throughout his youth. Letts moved to Los Angeles in his early twenties to pursue an acting career, but found life in Hollywood both difficult and unfulfilling. He then moved to Chicago and began an apprenticeship at the prestigious Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where he honed his skills as an actor, writer, and director and composed plays such as Killer Joe and Man From Nebraska. Following the success of August: Osage County, Letts began taking on more and more acting roles. He appeared in a celebrated revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and later appeared in prominent roles in the TV drama Homeland and the indie dramedy Lady Bird. Letts is married to the actress Carrie Coon, and was, in 2018, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play The Minutes.