Atw - Downstage Center

"Superior Donuts" and "August: Osage County" playwright Tracy Letts. talks about writing "Donuts" as his first "Chicago" play in homage to his adopted home city. He also discusses his childhood with his mother and father, college professors who would forge second careers as novelist and actor respectively; his own dual career as actor and playwright and why he won't appear in one of his own plays; the impact of joining Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Company; how his early plays "Killer Joe" and "Bug", and their reception in England, included him in part of a mini-movement that included Mark Ravenhill and Sarah Kane; what he thinks of the film version of "Bug"; how much of "August: Osage County" is based on his family's own history; why he creates characters who have difficulty articulating their thoughts and feelings -- including the hyper-articulate ones; and whether after the avalanche of publicity in the wake of "August"'s international success, he thinks he has anything left to say. Original air date - Novem