Today, we go behind the scenes of the the latest offering from Baltimore's Everyman Theatre: Sweatby playwright Lynn Nottage. The play follows working-class individuals in Reading, Pennsylvania, as they struggle with layoffs, de-industrialization and economic inequality. Nottage spent over two years conducting field research and interviews in Reading in order to ground herself in the community and learn more about the residents' lives before she wrote the play.
When Nottage was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Sweat, the Pulitzer jury called it “a nuanced yet powerful drama that reminds audiences of the stacked deck still facing workers searching for the American dream.” Nottage’s gritty tale has been described by The New Yorker’s Michael Schulman as "the first theatrical landmark of the Trump era…a tough yet empathetic portrait of the America that came undone."
Vincent Lancisi is the founding artistic director of Everyman Theatre, and the director of its new production of Sweat. Dawn Ursula, a resident company actor, plays Cynthia, one of the lead roles in the drama. They join Tom in Studio A.
Sweat opens on Friday at Everyman Theatre and runs through Nov. 25. You can buy tickets online here. Our theatre critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, will have her review of Sweat on Midday next Thursday, Nov. 1.
