When The Black Rep heads to Kansas to stage their acclaimed production of Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat as part of the 39th William Inge Theater Festival next weekend, they will have a hand in theater history. The performance is part of a tribute to Nottage, who will become the first Black woman to receive the festival’s Distinguished Achievement in American Theater Award.
“I believe audiences will be deeply moved by Nottage’s work – which champions the everyman, the working class, and marginalized,” said Hannah Joyce, William Inge Center for the Arts Producing Artistic Director. “She writes the struggle and humanity of her characters with enormous compassion and respect.”
Nottage will attend the festival – which takes place from April 21-23 – and accept the award in person. She’ll join writers such as Wendy Wasserstein, August Wilson, Neil Simon, Paula Vogel, Stephen Sondheim, David Henry Hwang, and Arthur Miller – among many other theatre luminaries – who have traveled to Independence, Kansas to accept the award.
“To conjure stories that can help people understand on a deeper level who their neighbors are, who their adversaries are – or even who their own family is,” said Agnes Gund of Arts for Justice.
Sweat served as the opening production of The Black Rep’s 45th season last fall. And just as with their original staging, Founder and Producing Director Ron Himes will direct the William Inge Theater Festival performance.
“Lynn Nottage tensely captures the root of our current political and racial tension in society today,” said Himes. “Are we only looking out for ourselves or are we responsible for each other?”
The featured ensemble for the performance includes Velma Austin, Wali Jamal Abdullah, Amy Loui, Don McClendon, Brian McKinley, Franklin Killian, Blake Anthony Edwards, Gregory Almanza and Kelly Howe. Christina Yancy will serve as an understudy for Ms. Austin.
Sweat provides insight on the experience of laborers as well as their circle of friends and family in the midst of coming to grips with paradigm shifts within the workforce. The changing dynamic creates a ripple effect that impacts their entire lives.
“Storytelling is really at the center of shaping our cultural narrative,” Nottage said during an interview with Agnes Gund of Arts for Justice in November of 2021. “And I speak as a playwright to conjure stories that can help people understand on a deeper level who their neighbors are, who their adversaries are – or even who their own family is.”
The play also explores how split-second lapses in judgement can result in life-altering consequences.
“Our job [as playwrights] is really to build empathy and provide this tiny little window into the world of another person,” Nottage told Gund. “Once we are able to inhabit the space of another, we are able to access our empathy. And once we begin doing that, we can really move towards healing.”
In addition to her upcoming historic honor at the 39th William Inge Theater Festival, Nottage also has the historic distinction of being the only woman two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama among many other honors – including being named a MacArthur fellow for the 2007 cohort. The fellowship is commonly referred to as the “genius grant.”
“There’s no finer playwright in our country than Lynn Nottage to represent true excellence in the American theatre,” Joyce said. “The William Inge Center for the Arts is long overdue in the presentation of this recognition.”
For more information about The Black Rep’s presentation of Sweat as part of this year’s William Inge Theater Festival, visit www.theblackrep.org.
