August: Osage County

October 18-26, 2024

PLACE: A large country home outside Pawhuska, Oklahoma, sixty miles northwest of Tulsa.

TIME: August 2007

Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for Best New Play, August: Osage County centers around the Weston family, brought together after their patriarch, world-class poet and alcoholic Beverly Weston, disappears. The matriarch, Violet, depressed and addicted to pain pills and “truth-telling,” is joined by her three daughters and their problematic lovers, who harbor their own deep secrets, her sister Mattie Fae and her family, well-trained in the Weston family art of cruelty, and finally, the observer of the chaos, the young Cheyenne housekeeper Johnna, who was hired by Beverly just before his disappearance. Holed up in the large family estate in Osage County, Oklahoma, tensions heat up and boil over in the ruthless August heat. Bursting with humor, vivacity, and intelligence, August: Osage County is dense and funny, vicious and compassionate, enormous and unstoppable.

For mature audiences only. Contains adult themes and language.

The Director

James Raby (director) holds a B.F.A. and an M.A. in drama and communication. For ACT he directed Misery, Murder on the Orient Express and Blithe Spirit. Other directing credits include Oedpus Rex, Vanities, Wings, and Vultures. As an actor, he has appeared in more than 50 productions. At ACT, he appeared in A Few Good Men (Capt. Whitaker) and Peter Pan (Hook/Mr. Darling), The Merchant of Venice (Antonio), Move Over Mrs. Markham (Alastair) and Gibson and Sons (Declan) and most recently as Arthur in Spamalot! Washington, DC, metro credits include Salieri in Amadeus, Oscar Hubbard in The Little Foxes, Ian in Shining City, Henry Higgins in Pygmalion. Texas credits include Henry in The Lion in Winter, Gooper in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Judge Danforth in The Crucible, Chulkaturin in Journey of the Fifth Horse, Peter Stockmann in An Enemy of the People and Captain Scott in Terra Nova. New Orleans credits include Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest.