The 2026-2027 season at CVRep is off to an incredible start with Adam Karsten’s brilliant staging of Tracy Letts’ THE MINUTES.
It is a brilliantly constructed piece of American theater: wickedly funny, unnervingly insightful, and ultimately devastating. What begins as a seemingly ordinary small-town city council meeting gradually reveals itself to be a sharp examination of power, historical mythmaking, and the stories communities tell themselves in order to preserve a comfortable sense of identity. The play’s structure is masterful, with Letts carefully feeding the audience bits of information until the full picture emerges in a way that is both surprising and inevitable.
CVRep – The Minutes -Charles Everett & Torsten Johnson – Photo by David A. Lee 
CVRep – The Minutes company – Photo by David A. Lee 
CVRep – The Minutes- – inda Slade, Kevin Symons, Randy Brenner -Photo by David A. Lee 
CVRep – The Minutes – Thomas Flynn, Linda Slade, Randy Brenner -Photo by David A. Lee 
CVRep – The Minutes – Kevin Symons & company – Photo by David A. Lee
One of the show’s greatest strengths is its ability to balance comedy and dread. The council members’ petty debates, procedural squabbles, and quirky personalities generate genuine laughter, but beneath the humor lies an increasingly disturbing question about who controls history and whose voices get erased. What starts as civic satire evolves into something much deeper and more unsettling, forcing the audience to confront uncomfortable truths about collective memory and national identity.
Letts demonstrates remarkable skill in creating characters who feel authentic rather than symbolic. Even as the play tackles broad themes, the council members remain recognizably human: defensive, ambitious, loyal, fearful, and often blind to their own contradictions. The dialogue is crisp and intelligent, capturing both the absurdity and danger of bureaucratic groupthink.
Most impressive is the ending. Letts takes the audience from laughter to profound discomfort with extraordinary confidence. The finale is shocking, memorable, and impossible to dismiss, lingering long after the curtain falls. Rather than offering easy answers, The Minutes challenges viewers to think critically about patriotism, historical narratives, and the cost of preserving comforting myths.
Adam Karsten has assembled an amazingly strong ensemble cast. Mr. Peel (Torsten Johnson) is the newest member of the council. Having missed the previous meeting, due to the death of his mother, he asks the clerk, Ms. Johnson (Angela Landis) for a copy of the minutes, only to be curtly told they aren’t available. When he asks why, not he gets an evasive answer. Then there is the question of why council member Mr. Carp (Calvin Adams) is not present. Again, more evasive answers. The others present include Mayor Superba (Kevin Symons), the very argumentative Mr. Assalone (Tom Flynn), the rather ditzy and heavily medicated Ms. Matz (Margery Lowe), the elderly and very crotchety Mr. Oldfield (Howard Shangraw), the privileged Ms. Innes (Linda Blade) who just loves ‘”low-income children,” the elitist Mr. Breeding (Randy Brenner), Mr. Hanratty (Craig Wroe) who wants to build a handicap accessible fountain in the town’s park, and the earnest Mr. Blake (Charles Everett), the only African-American on the otherwise all-white council. It is very rare and a credit to Mr. Karsten to have assembled this strong of an ensemble cast with not a weak link in the group.
Special kudos must go to Jimmy Cuomo’s rich set design which is effectively enhanced by Moira Wilke’s lighting design and Joshua Adams sound design.
In short, The Minutes is darkly comic, intellectually rich, and an emotionally powerful play that entertains as effectively as it provokes. It is exactly the kind of theater that sparks conversation on the way home and stays in the mind for a long time after the curtain goes down.
THE MINUTES is playing through November 15, 2026. For tickets and further information, visit their website at www.CVREP.org
