Twelve Days of Christmas: Tracy Letts

The holidays are upon us and BroadwayWorld is continuing our favorite annual tradition of celebrating the holiday season with a Twelve Days of Christmas countdown. This year we are featuring some of our favorite members of the 2025 Broadway scene to share their most cherished holiday songs, films, and performances. This year's countdown is sponsored by The Artist, streaming now on the Network.

In the twilight of the Gilded Age an eccentric, failing tycoon (Mandy Patinkin) and his brilliant wife (Janet McTeer) host an ensemble of the era's biggest celebrities including Thomas Edison, Edgar Degas and Evelyn Nesbit. The gathering soon turns deadly. The Artist also stars Danny Huston, Patti LuPone, Hank Azaria, Clark Gregg, Zachary Quinto and more. Check out the series the New York Times calls "....Operatic in its passions and power plays."

It's been almost four years since Broadway has seen a new Tracy Letts play. This season, audiences will be treated to his latest, Bug, which opens at the Samuel J. Theatre in the new year (January 8, 2026). During a break from rehearsals, he took a minute to reflect on which Christmas traditions put his family in the holiday spirit every year.

"For me it's the Vince Guaraldi Trio's A Charlie Brown Christmas," he told BroadwayWorld. "I mean, when you start to hear those little kids singing or that or the piano music... it seems to put everybody right in the mood."

Letts is the author of The Minutes (Pulitzer finalist), Linda Vista, Mary Page Marlowe, The Scavenger’s Daughter, Superior Donuts, August: Osage County (Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award for Best Play), Man from Nebraska (Pulitzer finalist), Bug, and Killer Joe. He won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in Play for his performance in the Tony Award winning revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In 2002, he joined the Steppenwolf Ensemble and appeared in American Buffalo, Betrayal, The Pillowman, The Pain and the Itch, The Dresser, Homebody/Kabul, The Dazzle, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Three Days of Rain. Film and television credits: Little Women, Ford v. Ferrari, The Post, Lady Bird, The Lovers, Indignation, Christina, The Big Short, Wiener-Dog, Guinevere, “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,” “The Sinner,” “Homeland,” and “Divorce.”

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