Meet the Smiths: father Ansel, stepmother Sharla, son Chris and daughter Dottie. With this family, things start out rotten and only get worse. Chris needs to kill his thieving mother to get her life insurance. He and Ansel hire Killer Joe, a police detective and hit man, to get the job done. With no money up front, Joe agrees to the job by taking Dottie as a "retainer," as Sharla schemes for her share of the pie.
This show contains nudity, sexual content, and violence, and is positively not for children. For a related article, click here.
Killer Joe, actor Tracy Letts' first play, premiered in 1993 at the Next Theatre Lab in Evanston, Illinois, under the direction of Wilson Milan. After taking the Edinburgh Fringe Festival by storm in 1994, Killer Joe was recast and remounted for a 1998 off-Broadway run, featuring Amanda Plummer as Sharla and Scott Glenn as Killer Joe Cooper. For theater reviews, click here
Actor Tracy Letts, born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, became a Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble member in 2002. His Steppenwolf credits include The Dazzle; Glengarry Glen Ross; Three Days of Rain; The Road to Nirvana; Picasso and the Lapin Agile and The Glass Menagerie. Film: Guinevere; Chicago Cab; U.S. Marshals; Straight Talk; Paramedics. Television: The District; Profiler; The Drew Carey Show; Seinfeld; Home Improvement. Mr. Letts' other play, Bug, premiered in 2000 at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.