April 16, 2025
The Center for Fiction is thrilled to have welcomed playwright and actress Eboni Booth to discuss her 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Primary Trust. Written as a dramatic stage play, Primary Trust is an elegant and arresting character study of an isolated man who finds a new job, new friends, and, in turn, a new sense of worth. Booth’s story reveals the courage required to expand one’s world and begin again.
Booth was joined in conversation by Heidi Schreck, an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and actress known for her celebrated plays What the Constitution Means to Me and Grand Concourse. The pair discussed the careful structures we all build to contain oceans of feeling—and what happens when those structures begin to crumble. In addition, William Jackson Harper (“The Good Place,” Midsommar), of the original Primary Trust cast, performed monologues from the play and singer-songwriter Luke Wygodny, who performed the music for the play’s world premiere, accompanied with original music from the play.
The Center for Fiction is thrilled to continue its collaboration with Theatre Communications Group for this event, with past events featuring Jackie Sibblies Drury and Claudia Rankine; Annie Baker and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; Heidi Schreck and Paula Vogel; Sarah Ruhl and Matthew Aucoin; Aleshea Harris and Nissy Aya; Lynn Nottage and Damon Tabor; Martyna Majok, Naveen Kumar, and David Zayas; Taylor Mac and Laura Collins-Hughes; Will Arbery, Chloé Cooper Jones, and Leslie Jamson; James Ijames and Jonathan McCrory; Tony Kushner and Isaac Butler; Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Jocelyn Bioh; Quiara Alegría Hudes; and Samuel D. Hunter and Rob Weinert-Kendt.
Featured Book
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Primary Trust
By Eboni Booth
Published by Theatre Communications Group
Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Primary Trust is an arresting character study of an isolated man finding the courage to expand his world and begin again. Thirty-eight-year-old Kenneth lives a comfortable life of routine in suburban New York: after days spent working at a used bookstore, he whiles away his evenings knocking back mai tais with his best friend Burt at the local tiki bar. But when the long-time bookstore owner decides to close up shop for good, Kenneth panics at the prospect of finding a new job—a process that unearths long-suppressed fears.
Featuring
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Eboni Booth
Eboni Booth
Eboni Booth is a writer and actor from New York City. Her plays include Primary Trust (Roundabout Theatre) and Paris (Atlantic Theater). As an actor, Eboni has appeared in productions at Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, Manhattan Theatre Club, Ars Nova, WP Theater, Page 73, Soho Rep., Clubbed Thumb, and more. Eboni is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and the recipient of a Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, a Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, and a John Gassner Award. She is a graduate of Juilliard’s playwriting program and the University of Vermont.
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Heidi Schreck
Heidi Schreck
Heidi Schreck is a playwright, screenwriter and performer living in Brooklyn. Her play What the Constitution Means to Me was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist and won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play. Schreck also received two Tony Award nominations for What the Constitution Means to Me for Best Play and Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play, the 2019 Smithsonian Magazine American Ingenuity Award, the Horton Foote Playwriting Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and an OBIE. A filmed version of What the Constitution Means to Me, starring Schreck, premiered exclusively on Amazon Prime Video, and was nominated for a Critics Choice Award, a PGA Award, and a DGA Award. Heidi’s other plays include Grand Concourse, Creature, Mr. Universe, and There Are No More Big Secrets. Her screenwriting credits include I Love Dick, Billions, and Nurse Jackie. Schreck has taught playwriting and screenwriting at NYU, Columbia, Kenyon College, and Primary Stages.
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William Jackson Harper
William Jackson Harper
Broadway: Uncle Vanya, All the Way. Off-Broadway: After the Blast (LCT3); Travisville (Ensemble Studio Theater); Primary Trust (Roundabout); A Family for All Occasions (LAByrinth); Modern Terrorism (Second Stage); The Total Bent, Titus Andronicus, Measure for Measure (The Public Theater); Placebo, A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick (Playwrights Horizons); and Queens Boulevard, Paradise Park (Signature); Ruined (MTC) Film. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Landscape with Invisible Hand, We Broke Up, Jodie, Dark Waters, Midsommar, Lost Holiday, Paterson, TV: “The Resort,” “Love Life” “A Man in Full,” “The Underground Railroad,” “The Good Place,” “The Morning Show”
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Luke Wygodny
Luke Wygodny
Singer-Songwriter/Actor based in NY’s Hudson Valley. Luke composed and performed the music for the world-premiere Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Primary Trust at Roundabout. National Tours: Once, Hundreds Days, American Idiot and Soul Doctor. Regional Credits: Primary Trust (La Jolla Playhouse) Godspell as Judas (PCLO); Disappearing Man as Jack (St. Louis Rep) and more. Wygodny writes and performs with his Americana/Folk band The Heartstrings Project. EP: into the Wild to be released in May.
