The Wait is Over: BUG Announces Original Broadway Cast Recording

by Kinsey Jasnoch. @kinseyjasnoch.

Original photo: Carrie Coon, Namir Smallwood, by Lily Cummings.

NEW YORK, NY — Ask and you shall receive! The team behind the Broadway premiere of Bug, a tense psychological thriller about a waitress who meets a drifter in a motel room and allows herself to become wrapped into his paranoias and conspiracy theories, has announced that an official cast recording will be available for purchase and on streaming later this month. 

“Once we saw that the demand was there, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to provide our public with playwright Tracy Letts’ sharply observant and startlingly topical words,” shared record producer Kitty McConaughey. “I mean, track five, which features 10 straight minutes of Tracy himself reading stage directions, is practically engineered for TikTok virality.” 

Though she happily contributed a seven-minute-long and wholly unrelated cover of Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” to close out the soundtrack, the play’s star, Carrie Coon, is less enthused about the project. 

“Honestly, I don’t get it. Is it like an audiobook?” asked Coon while signing thousands of CDs. “I don’t think that listening to it on a run or while you’re doing your AP Calc homework would be a particularly uplifting experience. And I can’t imagine it translates well to an audio-only format. Is there no interest in how deftly we use just one set? Does anyone even care how I emote? You know I’m like the Michael Jordan of doing a little glance.” 

Arthur Fish, an album engineer whose other work includes all 17 of Diane Warren’s Oscar-nominated songs, also revealed his confusion surrounding the upcoming cast album. 

“Is anyone actually asking for this? Do people want their Spotify Wrapped to be filled with actors monologuing about UFOs and cult suicides? Or is this just a money-making scheme to support Tracy Letts’ Blu-Ray habit?” 

Despite some protestations from the creative team, McConaughey promised that the album rollout would continue ahead as planned. 

“Once people know the words, they’ll get them stuck in their heads, which will only drive up ticket sales. The whole country will have Bug fever. And you know what that means… August: Osage County on vinyl by 2028.”