This generation gets its Tennessee Williams, and his name is Tracy Letts

If you have any interest in theater whatsoever, step over your own mother to see August: Osage County on Broadway through March. In fact, after seeing the play, I may encourage you to go out of your way to step on your mother, then go see August: Osage County. The prospect of a 3-and-a-half-hour long legit black comedy about a crumbling American family may seem daunting, and it is, but then, so is King Lear.

I chose King Lear as an example intentionally. Both plays involve 3 daughters fighting over their father's territory, with a series of alternately complex and conniving roleplayers. August: Osage County just also happens to have a matriarch rivaled only by Amanda Wingate and Mary Tyrone in all of American drama, and a daughter as tragically flawed and betwixt in her responsibilities as a daughter, sister, and wife, as Antigone (throw in mother to the equation). Did I mention it's also the funniest play on Broadway in years?

You may remember that I had a certain exchange with Tracy Letts over the crossover between theater and hockey, but now I'm just gleefully excited to have communicated with the writer of the next great American-with-a-capital-A dramas. You know, in the Death of a Salesmen, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Fences kinda way? Yeah, you can add August: Osage County to that list.

I'm even more giddy that when I said to myself only Proof can compare in terms of American plays of the last decade, I realized I've had an association with the playwrights of both of those plays (though my connection to David Auburn is much stronger). Even though the audience was old, loud, and obnoxious before the show, by the first intermission they were buzzing like no other Broadway play I've been to since, well, Proof.

Last year, when Wicked was a surprise success in Chicago, I worried that it would New York-ize Chicago theater, and weaken the grassroots model that had defined Chicago theater. Now, I'm immensely excited about the prospect that August: Osage County may Chicago-ize New York theater. In fact, I haven't been this excited about New York theater in years. If you combine the creativity and diversity of Chicago theater with the budget and professionalism of New York theater, we may be on the cusp of a new Golden Age for American theater. Wouldn't that be something?