About the Play:

Primary Trust won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Drama

Primary Trust is a full-length dramatic comedy by Eboni Booth. Do you have the courage to change? A simple and elegantly crafted story of a lonely man living in upstate New York who faces changing circumstances that force him to sink or swim. Primary Trust centers on a recently laid-off a bookstore worker who is encouraged by a quirky waiter to try something new.

Primary Trust is a compelling character study about Kenneth, a heartbreakingly lonely 38-year-old Black man living in the small town of Cranberry, New York. He lives a life of routine: after work at the local second-hand book store, where he's toiled for 15 years, he spends his evenings at the Tiki restaurant Wally's knocking back Mai Tais with his only friend Burt. But when the long-time owner of the store sells the building, Kenneth must face a world he's long avoided – with transformative and even comical results. He makes a new friend named Corrina, a waitress at Wally's, and she begins to ask questions Kenneth isn't prepared to answer: how many Mai Tais is too many Mai Tais? And who – or what – is Burt? Her suggestion for Kenneth to try to get a job at the Primary Trust bank sets into motion a series of events which proves that by taking risks, building relationships, extending trust, and leaning on friends, it's possible to overcome anything.

Primary Trust premiered in 2023 to rave reviews at the Laura Pels Theatre off-Broadway in New York City. Since then the play had regional premieres at professional theatres across the US and went on to win the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Canadian premiere is in 2025 at The Arts Club Theatre Company's Granville Island Stage in Vancouver.

Cast: 1 female, 3 male

What people say:

"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." — 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 (UK)

"NYC's best new play... Beautifully written... 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

"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

"This is a quirky, small-scale, quietly reflective work that's as tenderhearted as it is spryly comic and as poignant as it is ultimately uplifting." — Los Angeles Times

"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

About the Playwright:

Eboni Booth is an American writer and actor from New York City. Her plays include Primary Trust (winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama) and Paris (her playwriting debut). For television, she has written for Hulu's We Were the Lucky Ones and HBO Max's Julia and has staffed in writers rooms for Netflix and FX. As a critically acclaimed actor, she has appeared in productions at venerated New York venues including Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theater Club, Page 73, Soho Rep and more. She is a graduate of Juilliard's playwriting program and the University of Vermont.