Tracy Letts' 1996 play Bug gets a Broadway bow beginning December 16 via Manhattan Theatre Club, with opening night scheduled for January 8, 2026 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. We've got a first look at the production's key art, featuring stars Carrie Coon (The Gilded Age) and Namir Smallwood (Pass Over). Take a look above!
David Cromer is directing the new production, which comes to the Main Stem after a 2021 run at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Coon and Smallwood are starring as Agnes White and Peter Evans respectively.
Coon and Smallwood are reprising their performances from the Chicago run, alongside co-stars Randall Arney (You Can't Take It With You) as Dr. Sweet, Jennifer Engstrom (Sweet Bird of Youth) as R.C., and Steve Key (Sweat) as Jerry Goss. Understudies Ian Duff, Michael Laurence, and Kristen Sieh round out the company. Casting is by JC Clementz, with additional casting by Caparelliotis Casting and Kelly Gillespie.
Coon, Letts' offstage wife, is returning to Broadway for the first time since her debut performance in the 2012 revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, in which she starred as Honey opposite Letts, also a Steppenwolf transfer. She has spent the bulk of her career on the screen, including playing Bertha Russell in HBO's Broadway star-packed The Gilded Age and the recent season of The White Lotus.
WATCH: Carrie Coon Leads The Gilded Age Cast in Stephen Sondheim's 'Send in the Clowns'
Set in a seedy Oklahoma motel room, Bug centers on the unlikely romance between a lonely waitress and a mysterious and paranoid drifter. The longer they talk, the more the waitress begins to adopt his neuroses. The work premiered at London's Gate Theatre in 1996, with a revised version playing Off-Broadway's Barrow Street Theatre in 2004, winning the Lucille Lortel and Obie Awards for Best Play. A movie adaptation was released in 2006.
The production features scenic design by Takeshi Kata, costume design by Sarah Laux, lighting design by Heather Gilbert, sound design by Josh Schmidt, and hair and make-up design by J. Jared Janas. Gigi Buffington is the production's dialect and vocal coach, and Marcus Watson is the intimacy coordinator and fight director. Christine D. Freeburg serves as production stage manager.
