Lynn Nottage News

By popular demand, Goodman Theatre adds five performances of Sweat by Lynn Nottage, directed by Ron OJ Parson-on stage through April 21.

From Founding Artistic Director, Ari Roth: 'The eight amazing plays in Mosaic's 5th Anniversary Season offer up Stages of Awakening-urgent, exhilarating and humble-that hurtle our characters, and by extension, us, forward to new levels of awareness, puncturing bubbles of pretension along the way. To be 'woke' is to be no longer in the dark about what's happening around us; about the systems of oppression and persistence of racism that permeate daily life. But it can be tricky terrain, these states of 'wokeness,' leading to pats-on-the-back of self- congratulations and new forms of denial. Our extraordinary playwrights are hip to our follies and foibles, just as they're poised to wake us up to the realities of our moment and the relevance of history still knocking on our door.

7-play, 4-play, and 3-play subscriptions are now on sale for the Lyrics Stage 2019-20 season which runs from September, 2019 through June, 2020. Prices start at $132 and offer savings of up to 25% off regular ticket prices. For those who have never tried a 7-play subscription, the Lyric Stage is offering a First-Timer First Weekend special price. Call or email the Box Office for details.

The Donmar Warehouse's production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Sweat by Lynn Nottage announces casting for the West End transfer to London's Gielgud Theatre for a limited 6 week run from Friday 7 June 2019 for 50 performances only.

TimeLine Theatre Company announces the cast and creative team for the Chicago premiere of Too Heavy for Your Pocket, which doubles as the Chicago debut of rising young playwright and TV writer Jireh Breon Holder, recently named one of "Tomorrow's Marquee Names, Now in the Making" by The New York Times.

Cleveland Play House (CPH), offers the thought-provoking comedy Native Gardens from playwright Karen Zacarias, to be performed April 27th - May 19th  in the Allen Theatre at Playhouse Square.  The production is directed by CPH Associate Artistic Director Robert Barry Fleming, with a press opening Friday, May 3rd. 

The Goodman Theatre announces the new 2019/2020 Season of 'Theater That Moves'-three world premiere productions (including a new musical), four Chicago premieres and a major revival of a beloved contemporary classic-on the theater's two stages (the 856-seat Albert Theatre and 350-seat flexible Owen Theatre).

Four award-winning playwrights and one acclaimed theatre collective will join the residency programs at Signature Theatre, the company announced today.

The world premiere of AIN'T NO MO', written by Jordan E. Cooper and directed by Stevie Walker-Webb. AIN'T NO MO' opened just last night, Wednesday, March 27, at The Public Theater.

Atlanta's nationally acclaimed Alliance Theatre and Jennings Hertz Artistic Director Susan V. Booth are pleased to announce the productions of the Theater's 51st season.  Since opening in 1968 the Alliance has been dedicated to expanding hearts and minds on stage and off with diverse programming for all ages.  The 2019/20 season marks the Alliance's first full season back in its transformed performance space, the newly opened Coca-Cola Stage.

BroadwayWorld has learned the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta has announced their 2019/2020 season including three world premieres, including the new musical BECOMING NANCY directed by two-time Tony Award® winner Jerry Mitchell, two musicals, including MAYBE HAPPY ENDING directed by two-time Tony Award® nominee Michael Arden, and three productions for youth and families including the world premiere of  MAX MAKES A MILLION based on the book by Maira Kalman and adapted & directed by Liz Diamond.

Huntington Theatre Company Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Managing Director Michael Maso announce the lineup of their 2019-2020 season, featuring three world premieres, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, a classic Tony Award-winning comedy by one of the world's most celebrated playwrights, and two adaptations of powerful literary works. 

This Tampa Bay professional theatre premiere is now playing through April 14. Crumbs from the Table of Joy stars Alicia Thomas (Ernestine), Rae Davis (Ermina), and Michael J. Kinsey (Godfrey) as the Crump family. This break out play of two-time Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Lynn Nottage (Sweat, Ruined) is the coming of age story of a young African American girl whose family is finding their way through 1950's Brooklyn, as she teeters between filtering her life experiences through the fantasy of movies and learning the real poetry and pain of the world. Crumbs from the Table of Joy also stars freeFall favorites Trenell Mooring (freeFall's Our Town and The Little Prince) and Emilee Dupre (Broadway's Chaplin and freeFall's smash hit Cabaret.

Mary B. Robinson, director of SWEAT at Pioneer Theatre Company, says the Pulitzer Prize-winner contains 'nine characters [that] are created with empathy and humanity, demonstrating the 'curiosity not judgment' mantra of Playwright Lynn Nottage.'

In partnership with the Caledonian Club of Florida West, Asolo Rep will proudly host A Braw Wee Scottish Heritage Celebration on Thursday, April 11. 

WP Theater, under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Lisa McNulty and Managing Director Michael Sag, is thrilled to announce the inaugural WP Theater's 40th Anniversary Reading Series. In the first outing of this annual series, past meets present as WP shares staged readings of five extraordinary plays from throughout its history, directed by recent alums and current members of the WP Theater Directors Lab. The 5-night free series will launch on Monday, March 25 and run through Friday, May 3, 2019 at WP Theater, 2162 Broadway at 76th Street. 

Lynn Nottage's 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning SWEAT, now in its Chicago premiere at Goodman Theatre under the direction of Ron OJ Parson, focuses on a group of blue-collar factory workers in Reading, Pennsylvania. Bound together by the toils of working-class life in the town's steel-tubing factory, these friends and family members gather at a local bar to let off steam and celebrate special occasions. And though the work at the factory may not be fulfilling, Nottage makes clear this work is vital for the characters' livelihoods. For many of them, a life of working at the factory dates back generations. As the play toggles between 2000 and 2008, Nottage also reflects how her characters' lives intersect with current events and questions of race, class, and success in America.

Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, presents Atlantic Theater Company: The Secret Life of Bees by Susan Birkenhead, Lynn Nottage, and Duncan Sheik, with Sam Gold on Monday, April 22, 2019 at 7:30pm.

Salt Lake City Pioneer Theatre Company presents Lynn Nottage's award-winning drama, Sweat, in its Utah regional premiere, running Friday, March 29 April 13, 2019.

Powerful drama: still made in America. Lynn Nottage's 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat opens tonight in its Chicago premiere at Goodman Theatre. Ron OJ Parson directs the collision of race, class and friendship at a pivotal moment in America-hailed as 'extraordinarily moving' (The New York Times) and 'passionate and necessary...a masterful depiction of the forces that divide and conquer us' (Time Out New York). Sweat marks the fourth Nottage play to be produced at the Goodman, following Crumbs from the Table of Joy (2006), Ruined (a 2008 world-premiere Goodman commission that earned the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama) and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2013). Sweat appears through April 14 in the Albert Theatre. Tickets ($20 - $80; subject to change) are available at Goodmantheatre.org/Sweat, by telephone at 312.443.3800 or at the box office (170 N. Dearborn).