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Rehearsals have begun for Center Theatre Group’s production of “Sweat” by Lynn Nottage. The 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning play will be presented at the Mark Taper Forum August 29 through October 7, 2018. Directed by Lisa Peterson, the opening of “Sweat” is set for September 5.
The cast includes, in alphabetical order, Kevin T. Carroll, Grantham Coleman, Will Hochman, John Earl Jelks, Mary Mara, Peter Mendoza, Michael O’Keefe, Amy Pietz and Portia. The creative team includes set design by Christopher Barreca, costume design by Emilio Sosa, lighting design by Anne Militello, sound design by Paul James Prendergast and projection design by Yee Eun Nam. The production stage manager is David S. Franklin.
Filled with warm humor and tremendous heart, “Sweat” tells the story of a group of friends who have spent their lives sharing drinks, secrets and laughs while working together on the factory floor. But when layoffs, promotions and picket lines begin to chip away at their trust, the friends find themselves pitted against each other in a heart-wrenching fight to stay afloat. In his review of the Off-Broadway production for The New York Times, Charles Isherwood called “Sweat,” “Keenly observed and often surprisingly funny,” adding that “Ms. Nottage, a Pulitzer Prize winner for ‘Ruined,’ is writing at the peak of her powers.” Deadline’s Jeremy Girard called the play “ferociously engrossing” stating, “no play in recent memory has shed more light on the crises and tribulations of America’s great retrenched working middle class.”
In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Nottage’s play “Ruined,” received an Obie, the Lucille Lortel Award, New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play. Her other plays include “Intimate Apparel” (New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award 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!” Nottage’s numerous awards include the 2007 MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant,” the National Black Theatre Festival’s August Wilson Playwriting Award, the 2004 PEN/Laura Pels Award for Drama and the 2005 Guggenheim Grant for Playwriting, as well as fellowships from the Lucille Lortel Foundation, Manhattan Theatre Club, New Dramatists and New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild, an alumna of New Dramatists and a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, where she is a visiting lecturer.
Tickets are available online at CenterTheatreGroup.org, by calling Audience Services at (213) 628-2772 or in person at the Center Theatre Group Box Office (at the Ahmanson Theatre at The Music Center in Downtown Los Angeles). Tickets range from $30 – $99 (ticket prices are subject to change). The Mark Taper Forum is located at The Music Center, 135 N. Grand Avenue in Downtown L.A. 90012.
