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The Minutes
Beneath the deadpan back-and-forth of a seemingly typical city council board meeting lies the whiff of something distinctly sinister in Tracy Letts's new play The Minutes. Known for his keen ability to illustrate the faults and cracks under humanity's surface, Letts delivers an acutely thrilling new work that pulls you in with laughter before grabbing you by the throat.
96 pages, Paperback
First published August 20, 2024
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386 people want to read
About the author
Tracy Letts
15 books235 followersTracy Letts is an American playwright and actor who received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play August: Osage County.
Letts was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to best-selling author Billie Letts, of Where The Heart Is and The Honk And Holler Opening Soon fame, and the late college professor and actor Dennis Letts. His brother Shawn is a jazz musician and composer. He also has a brother Dana. Letts was raised in Durant, Oklahoma and graduated from Durant High School in the early 1980s. He moved to Dallas, where he waited tables and worked in telemarketing while starting as an actor. He acted in Jerry Flemmons' O Dammit!, which was part of a new playwrights series sponsored by Southern Methodist University.
Letts moved to Chicago at the age of 20, and worked for the next 11 years at Steppenwolf and Famous Door. He's still an active member of the Steppenwolf company today. He was a founding member of Bang Bang Spontaneous Theater, whose members included Greg Kotis (Tony Award-winner for Urinetown), Michael Shannon (Academy Award-nominee for Revolutionary Road), Paul Dillon, and Amy Pietz. In 1991, Letts wrote the play Killer Joe. Two years later, the play premiered at the Next Lab Theater in Chicago, followed by the 29th Street Rep in NYC. Since then, Killer Joe has been performed in at least 15 countries in 12 languages.
In 2008, Letts won a Tony and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for August: Osage County. It had premiered in Chicago in 2007, before moving to New York. It opened on Broadway in 2007 and ran into 2009.
His mother Billie Letts has said of his writing, "I try to be upbeat and funny. Everybody in Tracy's stories gets naked or dead." Letts' plays have been about people struggling with moral and spiritual questions. He says he was inspired by the plays of Tennessee Williams and the novels of William Faulkner and Jim Thompson. Letts considers sound to be a very strong storytelling tool for theater.
Letts was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to best-selling author Billie Letts, of Where The Heart Is and The Honk And Holler Opening Soon fame, and the late college professor and actor Dennis Letts. His brother Shawn is a jazz musician and composer. He also has a brother Dana. Letts was raised in Durant, Oklahoma and graduated from Durant High School in the early 1980s. He moved to Dallas, where he waited tables and worked in telemarketing while starting as an actor. He acted in Jerry Flemmons' O Dammit!, which was part of a new playwrights series sponsored by Southern Methodist University.
Letts moved to Chicago at the age of 20, and worked for the next 11 years at Steppenwolf and Famous Door. He's still an active member of the Steppenwolf company today. He was a founding member of Bang Bang Spontaneous Theater, whose members included Greg Kotis (Tony Award-winner for Urinetown), Michael Shannon (Academy Award-nominee for Revolutionary Road), Paul Dillon, and Amy Pietz. In 1991, Letts wrote the play Killer Joe. Two years later, the play premiered at the Next Lab Theater in Chicago, followed by the 29th Street Rep in NYC. Since then, Killer Joe has been performed in at least 15 countries in 12 languages.
In 2008, Letts won a Tony and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for August: Osage County. It had premiered in Chicago in 2007, before moving to New York. It opened on Broadway in 2007 and ran into 2009.
His mother Billie Letts has said of his writing, "I try to be upbeat and funny. Everybody in Tracy's stories gets naked or dead." Letts' plays have been about people struggling with moral and spiritual questions. He says he was inspired by the plays of Tennessee Williams and the novels of William Faulkner and Jim Thompson. Letts considers sound to be a very strong storytelling tool for theater.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
October 24, 2023
INNES: 'I love Abraham Lincoln. And violence.' p. 46.
This premiered 6 years ago but is only now being published - and even in that short time it has become a bit dated - the targets for the satire (basically the cheapening and moral collapse of politics since the advent of Felonious Chunk) are still operative and have probably even increased - but we've become inured to any humorous takes on such by the bombardment of insanity in politics over the past decade.
The play purports to show a city council meeting in a town called Big Cherry - the state isn't delineated, so as to not defame any one region; it could be practically anywhere, although I got a feeling it was somewhere in the east - or perhaps, given what happens, Florida. New member Mr. Peel has missed the previous meeting due to the death of his mother, and he is alarmed to find that in that session, fellow member Mr. Carp was summarily dismissed from his position and the minutes of said meeting have also been suppressed.
The set-up and underlying mystery are intriguing, but by the mid-way point, when people are screaming and getting into shoving matches, the whole thing has devolved into nonsensical chaos and loses any sense of reality - and one simply ceases to care much. And that weird ending also, as the reviews indicate, doesn't really stick the landing. Which is a shame, as Letts is one of our finest living playwrights and has at least one superb masterpiece under his belt (that would be August: Osage County).
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/17/th...
https://nypost.com/2022/04/18/the-min...
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/202...
This premiered 6 years ago but is only now being published - and even in that short time it has become a bit dated - the targets for the satire (basically the cheapening and moral collapse of politics since the advent of Felonious Chunk) are still operative and have probably even increased - but we've become inured to any humorous takes on such by the bombardment of insanity in politics over the past decade.
The play purports to show a city council meeting in a town called Big Cherry - the state isn't delineated, so as to not defame any one region; it could be practically anywhere, although I got a feeling it was somewhere in the east - or perhaps, given what happens, Florida. New member Mr. Peel has missed the previous meeting due to the death of his mother, and he is alarmed to find that in that session, fellow member Mr. Carp was summarily dismissed from his position and the minutes of said meeting have also been suppressed.
The set-up and underlying mystery are intriguing, but by the mid-way point, when people are screaming and getting into shoving matches, the whole thing has devolved into nonsensical chaos and loses any sense of reality - and one simply ceases to care much. And that weird ending also, as the reviews indicate, doesn't really stick the landing. Which is a shame, as Letts is one of our finest living playwrights and has at least one superb masterpiece under his belt (that would be August: Osage County).
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/17/th...
https://nypost.com/2022/04/18/the-min...
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/202...
August 2, 2024
One of the best, engaging and most f*cked up plays I've ever seen (July 2022) and now read.
July 17, 2024
Excellent satire of the current state of our country on display in a small town city council meeting. Very funny, but soon you sense something is bubbling beneath the surface and my curiosity was piqued. Wonderful payoff with a truly sobering and disconcerting ending.
February 16, 2025
Very dark and very funny. May be my favorite Letts' play yet. The perfect anecdote for the Trump 2.0 Era.
May 8, 2025
Really enjoyed it. Would definitely be a good script to work on Meisner with the Mamet-like dialogue and repetition. The ending is a slow burn that doesn't disappoint.
May 18, 2024
Although I've seen August: Osage County a few times, this is my first time reading a Letts play, and I'm smitten by its similar thumping of underlying darkness. What is our responsibility to the secrets we inherit? What is our duty to the stains that were spilled long before we walked in? Is there any viable future without proper analysis and amendment of the past? These are not necessarily the questions this play posits, with it also asking questions about what the purpose of a community is and whether some sense of moral corruption is needed to maintain such an ideal, but the question of the link between what was and what will be stuck with me the most. It made me feel dreadful, viscerally repulsed, and other big SAT words to mean that I was reading the last few pages while saying "ugh" over and over. It's a play that's lingered so far in my psyche and made me wildly uncomfortable - a commendable and arguably undeniable mark of a good play.
I always feel the need to end these serious reviews with something that makes me sound less pompous, so here it is: cool!
I always feel the need to end these serious reviews with something that makes me sound less pompous, so here it is: cool!
March 29, 2024
how do i force everyone i know to read this?
April 8, 2025
Wait! Don’t read further yet! Watch the Steppenwolf Theatre Company trailer of this play first. Just click here.
Well, last Saturday, I went to Amsterdam to visit a few exhibitions, stroll through bookshops and to have a Neapolitan pizza before going back home. Amsterdam is about one and a half hour away from where I live and I prefer taking a train in order not to have to search for a place to park and pay a fortune for it. Going by train means I can read on my way too. Since Op weg naar De Hartz, the wonderful Dutch book I’m reading now, is 472 pages long and weighs more than 700 grams, I decided that would be too big and too heavy for me to schlep all day long. I took ‘The minutes’ with me, which is only 82 pages long and weighs only 91 grams.
So here I was, in the train to Amsterdam, reading this play. The setting is the weekly meeting of the Big Cherry city council. Mr. Peel, a new member of the city council, didn’t attend the meeting last week because his mother has passed away. Entering the meeting room, the city council members offers their condolences to Mr. Peel. They talk about their children. Nothing special. Just the usual chitchat.
A local government leaders council meeting, 24 October 2024, in the UK via Wikimedia Commons. The meeting of Big Cherry city council may have looked like this too.
Yes, I know: I still didn’t tell you what is this all about, but I’m not going to do that either. I don’t want to spoil your own experience when you’ll read or watch this play.
The text on the book cover describes this play as a scathing comedy. Scathing indeed, but I certainly wouldn’t describe it as a comedy. It has all ingredients of a satire. If it wasn’t so sad, it would have been funny. Tracy Letts shows us through a magnifying glass things we all do. The effect of it is that we just cannot ignore how horrible they are.
The Boer War Memorial Fountain in Halifax, Canada, via Wikimedia Commons. There’s a fountain in this play too and it may have looked a bit like this one.
A play about the human nature, group dynamics and miscommunication. It’s about power, corruption and compromising. A play about democratic processes: By now we all know true democracy is not about the majority being able to do what they wish, but about the majority taking care of everyone’s interests.
Bernet Elzinga, a Dutch professor of stress-related psychopathology, once said that the human brain is built to search for predictability, not for happiness. This play is about the fear to change and holding to narratives we keep telling ourselves, even when we know they are not true. Reflecting the times in which this play was written (2017), it’s about being woke and about cancelling too.
A confronting play which you would prefer not to read or see, but you really should.
Well, last Saturday, I went to Amsterdam to visit a few exhibitions, stroll through bookshops and to have a Neapolitan pizza before going back home. Amsterdam is about one and a half hour away from where I live and I prefer taking a train in order not to have to search for a place to park and pay a fortune for it. Going by train means I can read on my way too. Since Op weg naar De Hartz, the wonderful Dutch book I’m reading now, is 472 pages long and weighs more than 700 grams, I decided that would be too big and too heavy for me to schlep all day long. I took ‘The minutes’ with me, which is only 82 pages long and weighs only 91 grams.
So here I was, in the train to Amsterdam, reading this play. The setting is the weekly meeting of the Big Cherry city council. Mr. Peel, a new member of the city council, didn’t attend the meeting last week because his mother has passed away. Entering the meeting room, the city council members offers their condolences to Mr. Peel. They talk about their children. Nothing special. Just the usual chitchat.
A local government leaders council meeting, 24 October 2024, in the UK via Wikimedia Commons. The meeting of Big Cherry city council may have looked like this too.
‘BLAKE. … Sorry about your mother.When everybody is there, except of Mr. Carp, the meeting starts. As usual, one of the first thing they do is to approve the minutes of last week’s meeting. Mr. Peel hoped the minutes will offer him some kind of explanation about the absence of Mr. Carp. Well, it doesn’t: The minutes of last week are not available yet. This is a perfectly common situation which we all know from work, study, the club etc. Nothing special. But we’re not there yet: The more questions Mr. Peel asks about Mr. Carp’s absence, the less answers he gets, or the other way around.
PEEL. Thank you. What happened last week?
BLAKE. What happened.
PEEL. The meeting, last week. Did something happen with Mr. Carp?
BLAKE. Who have you spoken to?
PEEL. What do you mean? No one.
BLAKE. You've spoken to no one.
PEEL. I'm speaking to you.
BLAKE. You've spoken to no one.
PEEL. I just got back.
BLAKE. But you said you heard about Carp.
PEEL. Just now, coming in, I overheard some talk about Mr. Carp.
BLAKE. Superba didn't mention Carp, did he?
PEEL. No. Should he have?
BLAKE. I'm not sure it's my responsibility.
PEEL. What isn't?
BLAKE. Catching you up.
PEEL. Not your responsibility.
BLAKE. Carp is no longer on the council.
PEEL. What?’ p.6-7
'PEEL. Listen, what is the story with Mr. Carp?
BLAKE. Peel's only now learning about Carp.
HANRATTY. Shame about Carp.
PEEL. Is it?
HANRATTY. Yes. I think so. A man down.
PEEL. Down how?
BLAKE. A bad man down is no tragedy.
PEEL. Mr. Carp isn't a bad man.
BLAKE. I didn't say he was.
HANRATTY. And I didn't say it was a tragedy. I said it was a shame.' p.8-9
‘PEEL. … Looks like I missed an important meeting last week.
BREEDING. What's important? A hundred years from now, will anyone care?
PEEL. Well, if you look at it like that, why show up at all?
BREEDING, Exactly. Good to have you back. We need more of your kind around here.’ p.13
'ASSALONE. You missed a meeting.Within no time, the situation becomes more and more explosive and hostile, until it’s just too late: The ugly truth just blows up in your face.
PEEL. Yes, I missed last week's meeting-
ASSALONS. You missed a meeting. And so now you expect us to use the time in this week's meeting to inform you about last week's meeting. As if that's the best use of our time.' p.30
'BREEDING. Well. That seems to be what you're insinuating
PEEL. Frankly, Mr. Breeding, I'm not sure you're bright enough to create a conspiracy.
BREEDING. Excuse me?
PEEL. But you're simple enough to go along with one. Ms. Johnson, will you please read me the minutes from the meeting of October twenty-fifth?' p.54
Yes, I know: I still didn’t tell you what is this all about, but I’m not going to do that either. I don’t want to spoil your own experience when you’ll read or watch this play.
The text on the book cover describes this play as a scathing comedy. Scathing indeed, but I certainly wouldn’t describe it as a comedy. It has all ingredients of a satire. If it wasn’t so sad, it would have been funny. Tracy Letts shows us through a magnifying glass things we all do. The effect of it is that we just cannot ignore how horrible they are.
The Boer War Memorial Fountain in Halifax, Canada, via Wikimedia Commons. There’s a fountain in this play too and it may have looked a bit like this one.
A play about the human nature, group dynamics and miscommunication. It’s about power, corruption and compromising. A play about democratic processes: By now we all know true democracy is not about the majority being able to do what they wish, but about the majority taking care of everyone’s interests.
Bernet Elzinga, a Dutch professor of stress-related psychopathology, once said that the human brain is built to search for predictability, not for happiness. This play is about the fear to change and holding to narratives we keep telling ourselves, even when we know they are not true. Reflecting the times in which this play was written (2017), it’s about being woke and about cancelling too.
‘HANRATTY. Inclusion, right, I think it's important that we reach out to everybody.Clinging to narratives can have devastating consequences for whoever dares to doubt them or just doesn’t fit in the fairy-tale we tell ourselves. This reminds me of Amsterdam once again: If Big Apple is what once was called New Amsterdam, maybe old Amsterdam can be Big Cherry too. 2024 is certainly not 2017 anymore. Amsterdam is one of those places where we learnt the past year that woke narratives are just like all narratives. Whatever becomes a dogma is disastrous for society and leads to its collapse. Processes like those Letts describes took place in the city council of Amsterdam too. These things just happen everywhere.
PEEL. Everybody.
HANRATTY. I mean, the unrepresented.
BLAKE. No one's representing them.
HANRATTY. I still think we need to reach out to them, even if we don't have any of them on our board.
BLAKE. Because his sister is handicapped.
HANRATTY. My God, Blake, are you behind on the nomenclature. "Handicapped" went out with sodomy laws.
BLAKE. Don't we still have sodomy laws?’p.9
A confronting play which you would prefer not to read or see, but you really should.
January 10, 2025
I first experienced The Minutes by Tracy Letts when my local university brought it to the stage. I have limited experience with Letts' style, but knew there would be a twist or something very unexpected as is common in his writing. I left the theatre feeling emotionally undone and weary. I borrowed a copy of the script from a friend who was in the show in hopes that reading it would bring clarity. It did, to an extent.
I started noticing little things about the lines and stage directions. Johnson repeating Carp's name every time the roster was read - I don't think this was in error. I believe she wanted to remind the council what they had done, even though she was complicit. Even though she did nothing to stop it.
The lights are set to flicker when a council member is being hypocritical or stating a bald-faced lie. Not knowing the entire story, this wasn't something I picked up during the performance I saw.
The name of the high school mascot, the Savages, is such obvious foreshadowing for the true story of Big Cherry. But it is glossed over both times the team is mentioned so you don't appreciate it right away. I love that it calls into question, at least for me, who the real savages are.
I think this quote sums up the heart of this play:
"Of course we all want the best for our children, Mr. Mayor, but the way you give them that future matters." - Peel, pg 71
Peel wants to be the bigger man, but even he is afraid. He's afraid that if he stands up to the council, to the city, he won't be able to give his daughter the best future. There are too many competing forces and, at the end of the day, self-preservation and the preservation of family is a stronger force than most people's morality.
I started noticing little things about the lines and stage directions. Johnson repeating Carp's name every time the roster was read - I don't think this was in error. I believe she wanted to remind the council what they had done, even though she was complicit. Even though she did nothing to stop it.
The lights are set to flicker when a council member is being hypocritical or stating a bald-faced lie. Not knowing the entire story, this wasn't something I picked up during the performance I saw.
The name of the high school mascot, the Savages, is such obvious foreshadowing for the true story of Big Cherry. But it is glossed over both times the team is mentioned so you don't appreciate it right away. I love that it calls into question, at least for me, who the real savages are.
I think this quote sums up the heart of this play:
"Of course we all want the best for our children, Mr. Mayor, but the way you give them that future matters." - Peel, pg 71
Peel wants to be the bigger man, but even he is afraid. He's afraid that if he stands up to the council, to the city, he won't be able to give his daughter the best future. There are too many competing forces and, at the end of the day, self-preservation and the preservation of family is a stronger force than most people's morality.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 10, 2025
As usual, Letts is brilliant. This skewers, quite appropriately, white America’s toxic, destructive obsession with a mythology and version of history that make Anglo americans the heroes, who’ve never done anything even slightly wrong, and make everyone else, nonwhites including native Americans, blacks, and Latinos, the enemy.
The final scene goes even more unexpectedly dark than anticipated, and the very final moment is wonderfully absurdist.
This play was robbed for the Tony and the Pulitzer.
The final scene goes even more unexpectedly dark than anticipated, and the very final moment is wonderfully absurdist.
This play was robbed for the Tony and the Pulitzer.
January 6, 2024
This play is WILD. So many small things in here with deeper meaning. I wish I could sit with the writer and dive deeper in the play with them and the intended meaning behind everything. Or another 100 pages of story to explain it all.
I’m so lucky to have seen this show on Broadway and I loved reading through it.
I’m so lucky to have seen this show on Broadway and I loved reading through it.
October 31, 2024
Everything is solid, with a great sense of humor and a hidden, darker tone that reveals itself with patience and masterful build-up. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending, however, which goes closer to a morality tale then a balanced examination and which the rest of the play doesn't fully support.
September 19, 2022
The pacing early in the play feels very quirky and "Gilmore Girls." I was laughing, but also a bit uncomfortable, then the sudden dose of reality hitting through monologue after monologue made this piece deeply emotionally jarring. I hope to see this, or stage this, someday.
August 16, 2023
I loved this play when I saw it last year, though it might not be Tracy Letts' best. It felt a bit didactic on the points it was trying to make -- but a year later I still cannot stop thinking about it. What a brilliant playwright, one of our generation's best.
May 18, 2025
A wonderful account of a town covering up their sins. Set in a town council meeting, one member presses the council to release the minutes of a prior council meeting, after which a council member mysteriously disappeared. Dramatic and filled with story and life. 3 women, 8 men
September 7, 2025
Will decide at the end of the year if I need these for my goodreads challenge
It was like 3.5 stars but I'm rounding up because it was a play. It was an important message but there were too many characters and they weren't very likable
It was like 3.5 stars but I'm rounding up because it was a play. It was an important message but there were too many characters and they weren't very likable
May 29, 2022
Play.
Revisionist history in an American town. White people play.
Revisionist history in an American town. White people play.
Read
June 19, 2022Studio 54
Directed by Anna Shapiro
Directed by Anna Shapiro
October 15, 2023
4.5. Very good and excellent commentary/storytelling, I just wish the female characters were fleshed out more and the ending lasted longer/had more weight.
November 2, 2023
Saw the play 4 times over spring/summer 2022.
Excellent.
Excellent.
May 1, 2024
Strong, strange many. Not an easy read. I think it must be highly visual so the impact of merely reading it is far less than an in-theater experience.
May 23, 2024
Okay this is great. Looking forward to The Station Theatre producing this show in the fall. 🥳
August 10, 2024
It's a Morality play -- a 21st century American guilt fest. It's not enough to live our own lives uprightly, we must take culpable responsibility for the actions of dead strangers. We are so comfortable, we must be bad. Knock it off already!
August 27, 2024
Holy shit.
September 2, 2024
Played Mr Peel on a Monday Night reading.
November 26, 2024
This play highlights the impact, or lack thereof, of community members. The Minutes is a reminder of the importance of historical accuracy. Tracy Letts knows how to pack a punch.
February 17, 2025
Tee hee, it's a satire about politics and any group that has meetings and minutes and oh. Oh.
June 15, 2025
Overall, a suspenseful play with an ending that keeps you thinking. A good commentary on an interesting small town. If you like shows that are singular setting, this is one for you.
August 29, 2025
This year's fall drama, and... 😳
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews