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SWEAT
June 9, 10, 11
Friday and Saturday at 8pm, Saturday and Sunday at 2pm
By Lynn Nottage
Due to adult language and content, SWEAT is recommended for ages 13 and up
SWEAT is presented through special permission by Dramatist Play Service inc.
Direction by Alliyah Thorpe, Stage Management by Cayla Kerr, Scenic Design by Baz Wenger, Scenic Construction by Baz Wenger, Brandon Gorin, Dylan Van Dyke & Karly Laskowski, Lighting Design by Wyatt Thompson, Audio Engineering by Jen Scorziello, Property Design by Baz Wenger, Costume Coordination by Daniel Combs
Starring Ashley Baker, Ruth Brittain, Sedric Willis, Michele Serpico, Charles Lewis Jr., Kevin Austra, Matthew Martinez & Chris Malone
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Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
About SWEAT: Life is hard but reassuringly predictable for a tight-knit group of friends in blue-collar Reading, Pa. On the factory floor and in the local bar, bonds are forged, drinks are downed, and gossip flows. But when layoffs and picket lines chip away at their trust, friends find themselves pitted against each other in a heart-wrenching primal fight for survival. From its slow-burn opening to its electrifying end, Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play confronts race, deindustrialization, and the ever-shrinking middle class with humor and heart.
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Reviews from Previous Productions of SWEAT:
“Keenly observed and often surprisingly funny—but ultimately heartbreaking—the work traces the roots of a tragedy with both forensic psychological detail and embracing compassion. Ms. Nottage…is writing at the peak of her powers…” —NY Times.
“…passionate and necessary…a masterful depiction of the forces that divide and conquer us…SWEAT communicates its points with minimal fuss and maximum grit. Along with the rage, despair and violence, there’s humor and abundant humanity…a cautionary tale of what happens when you don’t know how to resist.” —Time Out NY.
“Sharp and threatening as a box cutter blade…ferociously engrossing…SWEAT never feels less than authentic—and crucial.” —Deadline.com.
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Further Reading about SWEAT:
https://issuu.com/thomdunn/docs/sweat_curriculumguide_web
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About the playwright:
Lynn Nottage is a playwright and a screenwriter. She is the first, and remains the only, woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice. Her plays have been produced widely in the United States and throughout the world.
Most recently, Nottage premiered MJ the Musical, directed by Christopher Wheeldon and featuring the music of Michael Jackson, at the Neil Simon Theater on Broadway, Clyde's directed by Kate Whoriskey at Second Stage Theater on Broadway and an opera adaptation of her play Intimate Apparel composed by Ricky Ian Gordon and directed by Bart Sher, commissioned by The Met/Lincoln Center Theater.
Her other work includes, Floyd's (retitled- Clyde's) (Guthrie Theater), the musical adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd's novel The Secret Life of Bees, with music by Duncan Sheik and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead (The Almeida Theatre/The Atlantic Theater), Mlima’s Tale (Public Theater), By The Way, Meet Vera Stark (Lilly Award, Drama Desk Nomination- Second Stage/Signature Theater), Ruined (Pulitzer Prize, OBIE, Lucille Lortel, New York Drama Critics’ Circle, Audelco, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award- MTC/Goodman Theater); Intimate Apparel (American Theatre Critics and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Play Center Stage/SCR/ Roundabout Theater); Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine (OBIE Award - Playwrights Horizons/Signature Theater); Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Las Meninas; Mud, River, Stone; Por’knockers; and POOF!
Her play Sweat (Pulitzer Prize, Evening Standard Award, Obie Award, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Tony Nomination, Drama Desk Nomination) moved to Broadway after a sold-out run at The Public Theater. It premiered and was commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival American Revolutions History Cycle/Arena Stage. Inspired by her research on Sweat, Nottage developed This is Reading, a performance installation based on two years of interviews, at the Franklin Street, Reading Railroad Station in Reading, PA in July 2017.
She is the co-founder of the production company, Market Road Films, whose most recent projects include the. award winning documentary Takeover (NY times, Op-doc) by Emma Francis Francis-Snyder, the Peabody nominated podcast Unfinished: Deep South (Stitcher) by Taylor Hom and Neil Shea, The Notorious Mr. Bout directed by Tony Gerber and Maxim Pozdorovkin (Premiere/Sundance 2014), First to Fall directed by Rachel Beth Anderson (Premiere/ IDFA, 2013) and Remote Control (Premiere/Busan 2013- New Currents Award). Market Road Films currently has a first look deal with SISTER. Over the years, she has developed original projects for Amazon, HBO, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, Showtime, This is That and Harpo. She was a writer and producer on the Netflix series She's Gotta Have It, directed by Spike Lee and a consulting producer on the third season of Dickinson (Apple +).
Nottage is the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship, Steinberg "Mimi" Distinguished Playwright Award, PEN/Laura Pels Master Playwright Award, William Inge Festival Distinguished Playwright, TIME 100 (2019), Signature One Playwright, Merit and Literature Award from The Academy of Arts and Letters, Columbia University Provost Grant, Doris Duke Artist Award, The Joyce Foundation Commission Project & Grant, Madge Evans-Sidney Kingsley Award, Nelson A. Rockefeller Award for Creativity, The Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award, the inaugural Horton Foote Prize, Helen Hayes Award, the Lee Reynolds Award, and the Jewish World Watch iWitness Award. Her other honors include the National Black Theatre Fest's August Wilson Playwriting Award, a Guggenheim Grant, Lucille Lortel Fellowship and Visiting Research Fellowship at Princeton University. She is a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama. She is also an Associate Professor in the Theatre Department at Columbia School of the Arts.
Nottage is a Doris Duke Artist, a board member for BRIC Arts Media Bklyn, Donor Direct Action, Dramatist Play Service, Second Stage and the Dramatists Guild. She recently completed a three-year term as an Artist Trustee on the Board of the Sundance Institute. She is member of the The Dramatists Guild, WGAE, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is currently an artist-in-residence at the Park Avenue Armory.