Weather 
Due to demand, Tru, starring Tony Award winner & five-time Emmy-nominee Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Truman Capote, has been extended to May 3, 2026. Tony, Emmy, and Olivier Award winner Rob Ashford directs this first New York revival of Jay Presson Allen’s play at House of the Redeemer, a historic Upper East Side mansion first owned by a great-granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Previews for this tour-de-force performance, which also features two-time Tony nominee Charlotte d’Amboise, begin Friday, March 6, with an opening set for Thursday, March 19.
It’s December 1975 and Truman Capote is alone in his New York apartment, reeling from a crisis that cost him the elite social circle he adored. Drawn entirely from Capote’s own words, this funny and heartbreaking one-man play is an unflinching portrait of an artist at his breaking point, confronting the consequences of his most scandalous work. Performed in House of the Redeemer’s hyper-intimate Library, this strictly limited engagement offers a rare, immersive theatrical experience brought vividly to life by one of today’s most celebrated actors for an audience of only 99 patrons nightly.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson said, “I have long been fascinated by Truman Capote–both the man and his writing–and it is the honor of my career to be entrusted with playing him in the first New York revival of Tru. From the moment Rob Ashford and I first discussed the idea, I envisioned an intimate, environmental experience. I can’t wait for audiences to encounter this play up close in the uniquely intimate, historic House of the Redeemer.”
Rob Ashford said, “I had the great pleasure of directing Jesse in a staged reading of Tru as a one night only charity benefit in Tangier, Morocco the summer of 2024. He was mesmerizing! He captured the truth of the man, his humor and heartbreak. I’m thrilled that we get the opportunity to further explore this great pairing of actor and character.”
Producers Seaview, OHenry Productions, and Mickey Liddell & Pete Shilaimon, said, “We’re thrilled for audiences to experience the heartbreaking power of Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Truman Capote as he channels the dark truths of this brilliant, yet complicated, artist. Rob Ashford’s glorious environmental staging inside an intimate library preserved from the Gilded Age of New York promises to be a theater event for the history books.”
Tru was first presented on Broadway, on December 14, 1989, at the Booth Theatre in New York City. It was directed by the author. Robert Morse appeared in the title role and won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.
Truman Capote (1924–1984) was a literary pioneer whose impact on American literature remains unparalleled, revolutionizing the genre of true crime and elevating the art of the novella. His early writing extended the Southern Gothic tradition, though he later developed a more journalistic approach in the novel In Cold Blood. That book, together with Breakfast at Tiffany’s, remains his best-known work. Throughout his career, Capote remained one of America’s most controversial and colorful authors, combining literary genius with a penchant for the glittering world of high society.
A close companion of Capote’s in New York high society was Gloria Vanderbilt, one of his “swans,” the elite group of beautiful, affluent women he famously documented. Their bond, characterized by shared social events, fractured when Capote exposed some of her private secrets in an excerpt of his unfinished novel, Answered Prayers, that appeared in Esquire magazine in 1975.
The House of the Redeemer was built between 1914 and 1916 to serve as the town residence of Edith Shepard Fabbri, a great-granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt and first cousin once removed to Gloria. In 1949, Fabbri deeded the building to a board of trustees under the auspices of the Episcopal Church to be used as a religious retreat house under the name House of the Redeemer. It was designated a New York City Landmark in 1974 and is now considered one of the finest examples of early twentieth-century residential architecture in the city.
