Photo Flash: First Look at SWEAT at Donmar Warehouse

The Donmar Warehouse presents Lynette Linton's production of Sweat by Lynn Nottage. Casting includes Leanne Best, Patrick Gibson, Osy Ikhile, Wil Johnson, Stuart McQuarrie, Clare Perkins, Martha Plimpton, Sule Rimi and Sebastian Viveros.

In 2011, Lynn Nottage began spending time with the people of Reading, Pennsylvania: officially one of the poorest cities in the USA.

During the following two years, she dug deep into the forgotten heart of middle America, finding a city divided by racial tension and the collapse of industry.

Sweat is the Pulitzer Prize-winning play that Lynn Nottage wrote following her experience.

Her tale of friends pitted against each other by big business and the decline of the American Dream receives its UK premiere at the Donmar, directed by former Donmar Resident Assistant Director Lynette Linton.

Lynn Nottage (Playwright) is a playwright and a screenwriter, and the first woman in history to win two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. Her plays include Sweat (Pulitzer Prize, Tony Nomination, Obie Award) which moved to Broadway after a sold out run at The Public Theater, Mlima's Tale (Outer Critics Circle Nomination), By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (Lilly Award, Drama Desk Nomination), Ruined (Pulitzer Prize, Obie Award), Intimate Apparel (American Theatre Critics and New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards for Best Play), Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine (OBIE Award), Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Las Meninas, Mud, River, Stone, Por'knockers and POOF!. In addition, she is working with composer Ricky Ian Gordon on adapting her play Intimate Apparel into an opera. She has also developed This is Reading, a performance installation at the Franklin Street, Reading Railroad Station in Reading, PA. She was writer/producer on the 1st season of Netflix's series She's Gotta Have It directed by Spike Lee. Nottage is a member of the Dramatists Guild, an Associate Professor at Columbia University School of the Arts, and the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship, Steinberg "Mimi" Distinguished Playwright Award, Doris Duke Artists Award and PEN/Laura Pels Master Playwright Award among others.

Lynette Linton (Director) returns to The Donmar Warehouse after being Resident Assistant Director, assisting on productions including Knives in Hens with director Yaël Farber, The Lady from the Sea with director Kwame Kwei-Armah, The York Realist with Robert Hastie and Belleville with the newly appointed Donmar Warehouse Artistic Director Michael Longhurst. Lynette recently worked with Michael Grandage as Associate Director on The Lieutenant of Inishmore (Noël Coward). As director her productions include This is (Arts Ed), Assata Taught Me for which she received a Stage Debut nomination (Gate Theatre), Indenture (Dark Horse Festival), And Where There Once Were Two (Arcola Theatre), Assata: She Who Struggles (Young Vic), Chicken Palace (Theatre Royal Stratford East), Naked (The Vault Festival) and This Wide Night (Albany Theatre/Stonecrabs). Lynette will soon co-direct Richard II (Shakespeare's Globe) and direct Function (National Youth Theatre). As a writer her credits include Hashtag Lightie (Arcola Theatre), Chicken Palace and Step (Theatre Royal Stratford East). Lynette was Associate Director at The Gate Theatre from 2016 to 2017, she is also a co-founder of Production Company Black Apron Entertainment.