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The play is based on a seminal event in Letts’s own family: His maternal grandfather’s suicide (Letts was 10 at the time) and his grandmother’s ensuing drug addiction. As an homage to his late mentor, Howard Starks, Letts titled the play after Starks’ poem, August: Osage County. August: Osage County opened on Broadway in 2007, first at the Imperial Theatre and later at the Music Box Theatre. Letts’ father, Dennis, originated the role of Beverly Weston. Four months into the Broadway run, he died of lung cancer. Six weeks after he died, Letts won the Pulitzer Prize. Letts said, “It was so exciting of course to win it, again beyond my wildest dreams, but my father, because of his education and his love of the written word, that would have meant so much to him.” Letts also wrote the screenplay for August: Osage County (2013) featuring Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, both of whom were nominated for the Academy Award for leading and supporting roles respectively. When asked by The New York Times Magazine what he was most proud of, Letts replied: “I want to give a highfalutin answer to that, like, Oh, my personal development or my growth, but I think the truth is that the thing I’m proudest of is August: Osage County. Not the awards it won — the thing itself. The creation of the thing itself is the thing I’m most proud of…because it’s true. Not only is it a true story of my family and the place I come from and the people I come from, but it is also an embodiment of pretty much everything I believe about the theater and ensemble work.”
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