These days, our political discourse is colored by the notion that an objective truth does not exist; a truth that one can independently determine through common sense or reasonable diligence. Instead, truth is what one side tells you, and anything else is false.

In The Minutes, Tracy Letts’s scathing dark comedy about small-town politics and real- world power, themes of historical inaccuracy and the ‘Power of Myth’ take center stage. The play, written during the lead-up to the 2016 election, exposes the ugliness behind some of our most closely held American narratives while asking each of us what we would do to keep from becoming history’s losers. The Minutes is part comedy, part mystery, part drama, and Letts tackles the central Native American theme as a critique of the historical whitewashing of the treatment of indigenous populations in the United States. It was this connection to small-town politics and the distortion of some of our own history here in Montana that inspired me to present The Minutes for a Bozeman run this February. The production will be staged February 13th – 23rd, upstairs at the Bozeman Event Space (14 S. Tracy) in downtown Bozeman.

As an independent theater producer, director, and actor, I search for fresh scripts and classics that are not only well-written, but relevant to our time and place. I’m drawn to characters and situations that mirror our daily experiences; stories that encourage audiences to reflect on their own lives, both the big events and the small, seemingly- mundane moments. Additionally, a script must contain a healthy dose of humor along with pathos, just like life. The Minutes takes place in real time over the ninety minutes of a city commission meeting. The plot revolves around troubles that arise when local lore supporting the town’s heritage festival is challenged and a new member asks some uncomfortable questions, like: Why is one member gone and not to be spoken of, and why are the previous meeting’s minutes nowhere to be found? Letts’s story has managed to invite comparisons to Parks and Recreation and Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone, with a little bit of Alfred Hitchcock thrown in.

“The impulse of the town hall meeting was, of course, to take something very small and specific and hope that it represents a larger idea,” says Letts. “For me, The Minutes was a way to look at how we write and pass along our history. The way we function with it, the way we move forward through a day, through our lives, knowing what we know about our history, knowing the things that we have learned or unlearned, or learned wrong about who we are and how we got here. Every time we throw out food, or the casual ways in which we live with great comfort and take that for granted. I wanted to explore that.”

Tracy Letts is considered one of this generation’s most popular and critically-acclaimed playwrights, and is a personal favorite of mine. In fact, presenting The Minutes will complete a theatrical hat trick; I produced his Mary Page Marlowe at the Blue Slipper in Livingston in 2023, and the Pulitzer prize-winning August: Osage County at the Ellen in 2013. Letts is also an actor and an ensemble member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater Company, where The Minutes premiered in 2017. The play was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2018 and went on to a successful Broadway run in 2022 (with Letts himself in the cast), earning nominations for the Tony and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Play. The Chicago Sun-Times called The Minutes, “Astonishing... a pitch-black comedy about the current state of American politics,” and the Chicago Tribune hailed the play as, “Explosive... deftly captures the tension of patriotic grandiosity and provincial defensiveness found in city halls across the land.”

One of the greatest joys of producing local theater for me is assembling a pitch-perfect ensemble to tell the story. This production is no exception; I’m thrilled with the actors who have come together to lift these eccentric characters off the page. The Minutes cast includes John Hosking, Rhonda Smith, and Tom Morris, all original Montana Shakespeare in the Parks alums and founders of Bozeman’s Vigilante Players (Smith and Morris were also in August: Osage County). This production also reunites some of the brilliant cast of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, which we brought to the Emerson in 2022: Daniel Erickson, Jenna Ciralli, and Alex Miller (Erickson and Ciralli were also featured in Mary Page Marlow). Other actors well-known to area theater- goers include Eli Boyd, Will Dickerson (director of August: Osage County), Colton Swibold, Phil Taylor, and myself. There is a singular kind of shorthand, and a creative fun and ease, in working with actors who’ve known each other for decades. These longtime, real-life relationships will also help inform this particular story of members of a city council who perhaps know each other a little too well.

The Minutes is directed by another old friend of Bozeman: Montana native, MSU alum, and world-renowned magician, John Lovick (aka “Handsome Jack”). Lovick grew up in Libby, earned a BA in Motion Picture Production at MSU and an MFA in Directing at the University of Washington in Seattle. He currently lives in Los Angeles, but works around the country as a writer, director, producer, consultant, and performer. In 2022, he directed Asi Wind’s Inner Circle off-Broadway, which ran for over a year. He is currently co-writing a series of books with Penn & Teller, and is the artistic producing director of the Peacock Theater in Frisco, Texas.

Of The Minutes, Lovick says, “This play has everything you could want in an evening of theater. First, it’s a very funny, smart comedy with a cast of vivid characters. It also has the elements of a detective story, in that the central character is trying to unravel a mystery. It has big surprises that you can’t possibly anticipate. And finally, the play is about something—it explores issues of society, governance, morality, personal responsibility, and the stories we tell without being didactic in any way. I’m very excited about working with this great ensemble to bring this story to life.”

Keeping live theater alive is no small feat in this age of multimedia options and Artificial Intelligence. But I’m hopeful that perhaps a silver lining to the era of AI will be audiences’ renewed desire for real-life, real-time, up-close and in-person entertainment. There is no substitute for the live theater experience. We hope you’ll join us for this funny, thought-provoking play.

The Minutes will be presented Thursday through Sunday, February 13 – 16, and Friday through Sunday, February 21 -23, 2025, upstairs at the Bozeman Event Space, 14 South Tracy. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday performances begin at 7:30 p.m., and Sundays at 5 p.m. Tickets are $28 in advance at www.eventbrite.com, and $32 at the door, as available. An audience discussion will follow the performance on Sunday, February 16th, moderated by Yellowstone People's Executive Director Dr. Shane Doyle and Amy Croover, Montana State Director of the Nature Conservancy. This production is recommended for ages 14+.   

Cara Wilder is a theater and film actor, director, producer, and teacher. She holds an MFA from the National Theater Conservatory in Denver. Recent local productions include Mary Page Marlowe by Tracy Letts, Angels in America by Tony Kushner, The Sound Inside by Adam Rapp, and The Approach by Mark O’Rowe.