May 13, 2011
To: Sue Hoffman, Performing Arts Chair
Maury County Arts Guild
705 Lion Parkway
Columbia, Tennessee 38401
Dear Ms. Hoffman,
I am writing to you to request that Tracy Lett’s play August: Osage County be considered for inclusion in the Maury County Arts Guild 2012-2013 season to be performed during the month of August 2012.
August: Osage County is a 13-character dark comedy about the Weston family. The play is set in the small mid-western town of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, sixty miles northwest of Tulsa, set during the furnace-hot August of 2007. Beverly Weston, alcoholic and former poet, has mysteriously disappeared after hiring a Johnna, Cheyenne Native American, as a live-in housekeeper for his pill-popping, chain-smoking wife, Violet. With the disappearance of the patriarch, three generations of the dysfunctional Weston family gather together in the large country home on the baking mid-western plains for the first time in years.
Critics deem the play as “the first American classic of the 21st century.” This contemporary classic has received many of theatre’s most prestigious awards, including the 2008 Drama Desk Award for Best New Play, 2008 Drama League Award for Distinguished Production of a Play, 2008 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play, 2008 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Broadway Play, 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and 2008 Tony Award for Best Play.
Inside one house August: Osage County presents to audiences what fills the newspapers of America every day, including Maury County’s very own Daily Herald: addiction, wit, cancer, mental illness, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, verbal abuse, domestic abuse, academia, literature, infidelity, incest, pedophilia, suicide, secrets, resentment, and estrangement. It is a play that doubles audiences in laughter one moment and then gasps them in shock the next moment without warning and without apology. Above all, August: Osage County is about family and its inherent dysfunction. It is about a group of people who, despite fierce vices and deep-rooted differences, are tightly bound by blood, vows, and a long, damaged history. Together for the first time in years, this family must deal with one other and with the decades of baggage each brings as 13 people meet face-to-face in the pressure cooker of a house on the broiling American Plains.
Because every person has a family, no matter what form that family takes, and because every family carries its own history and its own baggage, the crux of family conflict makes August: Osage County relatable for almost any audience.
This focus on family is also what makes August: Osage County an excellent production for the Maury County Arts Guild’s upcoming season. Families are communities, and as a community theatre, Maury County Arts Guild seeks to engage the Maury County community in the arts. With its 13-character cast and age range of 14 to 69, August: Osage County offers the Maury County Arts Guild the unique opportunity to engage a large number of multi-aged community members in a gripping, esteemed, and relatable theatre production.
Traditionally, the set of August: Osage County involves constructing a laborious, expensive, 3-story house. Maury County Arts Guild does not have the budget to construct such a set. What Maury County Arts Guild does have though is a large, open theatre space with unattached seating in which to create the interior of a house. The floor space can act as the first floor of the house; the stage can act as the second floor; and the third floor, Johnna’s room, can be represented by a large platform built on one side of the stage. All floors should be furnished appropriately with household items while large rugs of different patterns should indicate individual rooms. The two extreme sides of the floor space can act as the exterior of the house, indicated by porch railings, scorched grass, and proper lighting. Appropriately, the production should run during the month of August.
Ms. Hoffman, with the relatable subject matter and with the high community involvement, August: Osage County offers the Maury County Arts Guild a noteworthy opportunity to engage a large, muli-aged community in a production intimately relatable to the Maury County community.
Thank you for your consideration. I wish the Guild the best of luck with their current season and with the selection of the upcoming season, which I hope will include August: Osage County.
Sincerely,
Anna Rose MacArthur
Dramaturg
Homepage of The Maury County Arts Guild Official Website’s
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