Estelle Parsons to Headline National Tour of August: Osage County

Estelle Parsons has signed on to play Violet Weston in the forthcoming national tour of Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County. The 81-year-old actress has been starring in the Broadway production since June 17, 2008, having replaced Tony winner Deanna Dunagan as the venomous matriarch in Letts’ Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

August: Osage County will launch its national tour in Denver on July 24 at the Ellie Caukins Opera House, running through August 8. It will then play San Francisco’s Curran Theatre from August 11 to September 6. Subsequent engagements will be announced shortly.

Parsons made her Broadway debut in Happy Hunting and has starred in or directed more than 25 productions, including Tony-nominated performances in The Seven Descents of Myrtle, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little, Miss Margarida’s Way and Morning’s at Seven. She won the Academy Award for Bonnie & Clyde and was nominated again the following year for her work in Rachel, Rachel. On television, she played the star’s mother in Roseanne and appeared in the HBO miniseries Empire Falls. Parsons has directed various productions of the Oscar Wilde play Salome starring Al Pacino and appeared in Pacino’s documentary Salomaybe?

Directed by 2008 Tony Award-winner Anna D. Shapiro, August: Osage County tells the story of the Westons, an extended clan that comes together at their rural Oklahoma homestead after the alcoholic patriarch disappears. Forced to confront unspoken truths and astonishing secrets, the family must also contend with Violet, a pill-popping, deeply unsettled woman at the center of the storm.

The tour launches at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House in Denver, where it will play from July 24 through August 8 and then proceeds to the Curran Theatre in San Francisco 8/11-9/6, the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles 9/8-10/18, the Paramount Theatre in Seattle 10/27-11/1, the Canon Theatre in Toronto 11/5-11/15, the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford, CT 11/17-11/22, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. 11/24-12/20, ASU Gammage in Tempe, AZ 1/5/10-1/10/10, the Ford Center for the Performing Arts in Chicago 2/2/10-2/14/10, the Ordway in St. Paul, MN 3/16/10-3/21/10 and the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia 4/27/10-5/2/10.