In The Minutes, Tracy Letts’s scathing dark comedy about small-town politics and real-world power, the playwright who penned August: Osage County exposes the ugliness behind some of our most closely-held American narratives while asking each of us what we would do to keep from becoming history’s losers. The local stage production will be presented February 13th–23rd at Bozeman Event Space. Thursday, Friday and Saturday performances begin at 7:30pm, with Sunday shows at 5pm.
Set in a small town city council meeting, The Minutes is part comedy, part mystery, part drama, and playwright Letts tackles the central Native American theme as a critique of the historical whitewashing of indigenous populations in the United States. The plot centers around the troubles that arise when a new member starts to ask some uncomfortable questions, like: Why is one member gone and not to be spoken of, and why are the previous meeting’s minutes nowhere to be found? Letts’s story has managed to invite comparisons to Parks & Recreation and Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone with a little bit of Alfred Hitchcock thrown in.
“The impulse of the town hall meeting was, of course, to take something very small and specific and hope that it represents a larger idea,” Letts said. “For me, The Minutes was a way to look at how we write and pass along our history. The way we function with it, the way we move forward through a day, through our lives, knowing what we know about our history, knowing the things that we have learned or unlearned or learned wrong about who we are and how we got here. Every time we throw out food or the casual ways in which we live with great comfort and take that for granted. I wanted to explore that.”
The Minutes premiered in 2017 at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2018. The play went on to a successful Broadway run in 2022, earning nominations for the Tony and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Play.
Chicago Sun-Times called The Minutes, “Astonishing… a pitch-black comedy about the current state of American politics,” and the Chicago Tribune hailed the play as, “Explosive… Deftly captures the tension of patriotic grandiosity and provincial defensiveness found in city halls across the land.”
The Minutes features an all-star Bozeman cast, including John Hosking, Rhonda Smith and Tom Morris, all original Montana Shakespeare in the Parks alums and founders of Bozeman’s Vigilante Players. Other actors well-known to area theater-goers include Eli Boyd, Jenna Ciralli, Will Dickerson, Daniel Erickson, Alex Miller, Colton Swibold, Phil Taylor and Cara Wilder. The Minutes is directed by Montana native, MSU alum, and world-renowned magician, John Lovick (aka “Handsome Jack”).
The Minutes will be presented Feb. 13th–23rd upstairs at Bozeman Event Space, located at 14 S Tracy. This production is recommended for ages 14+. Tickets are available now at www.eventbrite.com. •
