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A SAMUEL FRENCH, INC. TITLE
Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1w, 3m
By Eboni Booth
Original music composed by Luke Wygodny
A touching and inventive play about new beginnings, Primary Trust explores the inner and outer lives of Kenneth, a heartbreakingly lonely 38-year-old man living in the small town of Cranberry, New York.
Image: 2023 Roundabout Theatre Company Production (Joan Marcus)
Winner! 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Meet Kenneth, a 38-year-old bookstore worker who spends his evenings sipping mai tais at the local tiki bar. When he’s suddenly laid off, Kenneth finally begins to face a world he's long avoided – with transformative and even comical results. Primary Trust is a touching and inventive play about new beginnings, old friends and seeing the world for the first time.
Cranberry, New York, a suburb of Rochester. Before smart phones.
“NYC’s best new play... beautifully written... a 95-minute, intermissionless, buffed-to-gleaming jewel.” – The Daily Beast
Best Theater of 2023! “The glory of both the writing and acting was in letting us experience the character’s sadness and, even more, the hard work behind his efforts to stay afloat in a painful world.” – The New York Times
“Eboni Booth’s portrait of one man's loneliness and the danger of coping mechanisms will restore your faith in theater’s elemental storytelling powers. And make you cry... Booth’s fine-grained portrait of loneliness and the danger of coping mechanisms is neither grief porn nor a therapeutic fantasy.” – The Observer
“NYC’s best new play... Beautifully written... a 95-minute, intermissionless, buffed-to-gleaming jewel, following the life of a handsome, charming man named Kenneth... who – capsized early in life by a horrifically traumatic event – struggles, mulls, deflects, and cheerfully and not-so-cheerfully interrogates how to progress with his life in the suburb of Cranberry, New York.” – Daily Beast
“[A] tender, delicately detailed portrait... As in her superstore dark comedy Paris, Booth again probes the half-dread of working-class Black characters in a one-freeway-exit corner of the Northeast.” – The New York Times
“Carefully constructed... Buoyed by a broader discussion of who society leaves behind and at the margins, Primary Trust is an intimate character piece handled with tenderness.” – New York Theatre Guide
“Tender, touching... Eboni Booth has created Kenneth’s world with loving attention to detail... Primary Trust explores the terrain of loneliness and the gentle joy of connection between one human being and another.” – Theater Pizzazz
“Arresting... the mild-mannered Kenneth is one of the most heartbreaking characters to appear on the New York stage in recent memory... Our desire to protect Kenneth comes from Booth’s extraordinary gift for creating heartfelt dialogues between Kenneth and his audience, even though he’s the one doing all the talking.” – The Wrap
Primary Trust – Roundabout Theatre Company Trailer
Primary Trust – Roundabout Theatre Company Teaser
Primary Trust – Meet the Characters
Primary Trust – Meet the Cast and Crew
Primary Trust – Meet the Cast
1. Upstate Sky (Guitar)2. Cranberry, NY (Guitar)3. Man in a Hawaiian Shirt (Keyboard)4. Welcome to Wally’s (Keyboard)5. Broken Leaves (Cello)6. New York’s Oldest Tiki Hut (Keyboard)7. Light Within the Darkness (Cello)8. Easy as a Pancake (Keyboard)9. When I Was a Kid (Cello)10. Le Pousselet (Guitar)11. The Wind (Guitar)12. Snow Globe (Cello)13. My Name is Kenneth (Keyboard)14. For Right Now (Keyboard)
Note from the Composer (and Musician from the Original Production)
The Man in the Hawaiian Shirt is not just the Musician in the world of Primary Trust, but acts as an additional character, supporting the story’s inner life. Each bell hit is deeply rooted in intention, whether that’s Kenneth’s shift in thought, a breath, light cue, scene change, passage of time and more. The cello echoes the emotional life through powerful swells of transitions. The piano at Wally’s is the familiar and tied to Kenneth’s relationship with Bert. The guitar is a portal to change and new beginnings. Deep listening is the key to uncracking it all, and the score is simply your guide.
Original music for Primary Trust composed by Luke Wygodny
1 Full Score – Cello/Guitar/Keyboard/Call Bell
Eboni Booth is a writer and actor from New York City. Her plays include Primary Trust (Roundabout Theatre, Pulitzer Prize for Drama) and Paris (Atlantic Theater). Eboni is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and a Judith Champion Playwriting Fellow at Manhattan Theatre Cl ...
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