Cincinnati Shakespeare Company to Stage Pulitzer-Winning 'August: Osage County'

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Mikki Schaffner Photography

Leslie Brott as Violet Weston

Usually we look to the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company for plays that have been around for a century or four, but some shows become classics in less time. One of those will kick off Cincy Shake’s upcoming season: Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County. The 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner (it also won the best play Tony Award that year) is a classic in many ways; it has three acts, lots of characters — not typical of most modern dramas. In fact, it’s a sprawling story about three dysfunctional generations of the Weston family struggling to understand the suicide of the Weston patriarch. They gather in the family home where old wounds and buried secrets bubble and fester. There’s humor and heartbreak, and it’s a fine choice to showcase Cincy Shakes’ veteran actors, especially the women. The 2019-2020 theater season is billed as “The Season of the Woman,” with each production having sensational roles for females; August: Osage County could just have the most intriguing. Sept. 6-28. $60-$71. Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, 1195 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine, cincyshakes.com.