About the Show

A waitress, a drifter, and a motel room—where passion descends into paranoia and conspiracy.

Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Tracy Letts (August: Osage County) brings his psychological thriller Bug to Broadway in a Steppenwolf Theatre Company staging directed by Tony Award winner David Cromer (The Band’s Visit, Prayer for the French Republic).

Set in a rundown Oklahoma motel, the story follows Agnes, a lonely waitress, who begins an unexpected romance with Peter, a mysterious drifter. Their connection quickly deepens, but what starts as intimacy spirals into paranoia, delusion, and conspiracy, blurring the line between reality and obsession.

The Broadway premiere stars Emmy Award nominee Carrie Coon (Fargo, The Gilded Age) as Agnes and Namir Smallwood (Pipeline, Buried Child) as Peter, reprising their acclaimed performances from Steppenwolf’s Chicago production.

Critic Reviews (10)

"Amid crafty scenic metamorphoses, blood, violence, and pyrotechnics, the show’s most special effects are performances by Coon and Smallwood."
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"The slipperiness of ostensible skepticism into utter credulity is what makes Bug continue to resonate so powerfully today."
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"To really do its work, Bug needs to get under our skin, and here it never quite does. We’ve got to feel not only the ick but the itch."
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"It’s a thriller that turns the screws so unnoticeably you begin squirming before you notice how efficiently the play has gotten, well, under your skin."
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“ 'Bug is as intimate as it is intense...The performances are also outstanding."
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"The sensationally unnerving Broadway premiere of 'Bug'... reads like an origin story for our climate of mistrust and isolation."
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"It's near impossible not to peek through your fingers: Bug is all absorbing."
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"There are elements of Cromer’s staging that could be tightened—the opening scene could ignite more quickly, and the final moments would benefit from greater explosive sharpness... Bug is the scariest play ever written."
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