About the Play:

The Stonemason is a full-length drama by Cormac McCarthy. From a writer hailed as an American original – and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Road and the national bestsellers No Country for Old Men and All the Pretty Horses – comes a taut, expansively imagined drama about four generations of an African-American family.

The Stonemason is a touching contemplation of the ethical value of craftsmanship and the dignity of work. The setting is Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1970s. The Telfairs are stonemasons and have been for generations. Ben Telfair has given up his education to apprentice himself to his grandfather, Papaw, a man who knows that "true masonry is not held together by cement but... by the warp of the world." Out of the love that binds these two men and the gulf that separates them from the Telfairs who have forsaken – or dishonoured – the family trade, Cormac McCarthy has crafted a drama that bears all the hallmarks of his great fiction: precise observation of the physical world; language that has the bite of common speech and the force of Biblical prose; and a breathtaking command of the art of storytelling.

Cast: 6 female, 7 male plus extras

What people say:

"Expertly constructed and limpidly written, the play triumphs in its presentation of Papaw, whose earthy wisdom McCarthy makes altogether credible." — Chicago Tribune

"Mr. McCarthy has the best kind of Southern style, one that fuses risky eloquence, intricate rhythms and dead-to-rights accuracy ... based on a Southern black family he worked with for many months. The breakdown of the family in the play mirrors the recent disappearance of stoneworking as a craft." — New York Times

"McCarthy is a born storyteller, a writer of natural, impeccable dialogue, a literary child of Faulkner." — New Republic

About the Playwright:

Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He authored twelve novels that have been published in 48 territories across the globe. All the Pretty Horses won a National Book Award, and The Road won a Pulitzer Prize. Both were made into films, as was No Country for Old Men, which won the Academy Award for best picture. He also wrote the scripts for the plays The Stonemason and The Sunset Limited.