American Buffalo

Nominated for four tony awards!

Over four decades since David Mamet's American Buffalo first made its Broadway bow, the masterful mediation on machismo, locker room camaraderie and competitiveness returns to the Great White Way. The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright brings the drama to stage once more in partnership with frequent collaborator Neil Pepe (Speed-The-Plow, Spring Awakening), as well as Emmy Award-winning Hollywood heavyweight Sam Rockwell, Tony Award-winning stage and screen legend Laurence Fishburne and Golden Globe winner Darren Criss.

Mamet's second-full length play, American Buffalo catapulted the fledgling writer to literary icon status and first introduced audiences to "Mametspeak", a poetic confluence of profanity, interruptions and tough-as-nails vernacular that came to typify his dramatic voice. Calling out the flaws of the American Dream, the drama collides loyalty, friendship, business and betrayal in the gripping pressure cooker society where striving to be above the masses, rather than striving with them, is the order of the day.

What Is American Buffalo About?

The story follows three small-time hustlers and friends, Donny, Bobby and Teach. Taking place in the stifling confines of Donny's junk shop, the on stage action is set into motion when Donny proposes a heist of rare and valuable coins from a local collector, initially recruiting the young and troubled Bobby for the job. When Teach, an old friend of Donny's arrives, he wants in and sets about persuading Donny that Bobby is too inexperienced for the task and that he should be the one to do it. As they spar and joust verbally, tensions escalate to boiling point when intentions, lies and the addition of a fourth heist member come to light.