American Buffalo on Broadway Tickets

By: David Mamet
Director: Neil Pepe
Producer: Jeffrey Richards, Steve Traxler, and Stephanie P. McClelland
Cast list: Laurence Fishburne (as Donny), Sam Rockwell (as Teach), and Darren Criss (as Bobby)

The hustle and the con are two sides of the same coin in American Buffalo. David Mamet’s ferocious and timely dissection of the American Dream returns to Broadway more relevant than ever. Get American Buffalo tickets on TodayTix.

American Buffalo audiences will be required to wear masks at all performances through July 10.

Donny, the owner of a junk shop in Chicago, believes he has been swindled. He just sold a buffalo nickel to a customer for $90, but now suspects it was worth much more. With his poker buddy Teach and his young employee Bobby, Donny hatches a plan to steal back the nickel. But the plot soon spins wildly out of control.

The American Buffalo play first premiered at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in 1975, later transferring to the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1977 for David Mamet’s Broadway debut. “This is his first trip to Broadway, but it will hardly be his last,” critic Clive Barnes wrote prophetically in The New York Times, praising the “grotesquely humorous repetitiousness” of Mamet’s dialogue: “The man can write.”

Today, Mamet remains among the foremost voices in American drama, capturing the cruel, absurd and often violent realities of life among the dogged and the downtrodden. Mamet’s many acclaimed classic works include Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow and Oleanna. Mamet is a Pulitzer Prize-winning winner and has been nominated for two Tony Awards.

One of Mamet’s earliest yet still most widely acclaimed plays, American Buffalo returns to Broadway at a timely moment, when each America’s desperation for their piece of the American Dream is stronger than ever. Get American Buffalo tickets on TodayTix.

What to Watch For

• The all-star American Buffalo Broadway revival cast includes Laurence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell and Darren Criss.
• Director Neil Pepe is intimately familiar with Mamet’s work, having staged Broadway revivals of his plays A Life in the Theatre and Speed-the-Plow. Pepe is also artistic director of Atlantic Theater Company, which Mamet co-founded in 1985.
• The production will mark American Buffalo’s third Broadway revival. The most recent revival of American Buffalo in New York was in 2008, but closed after eight performances.
• Film star Al Pacino previously played the role of Teach, first in a 1981 off-Broadway revival, and then again in 1983, this time on Broadway.
• Actor James Hayden played Bobby, a heroin addict, opposite Pacino in the 1983 production. Hayden himself died of a heroin overdose just hours after completing a performance. His understudy stepped in for the remainder of the run.

Production photos by Richard Termine