Sweat - The Play Tickets | Schedule for 2024/2025 Events

Sweat - The Play

Sweat- The Play was written by Lynn Nottage that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2017. It deals with social issues like capitalism, racism, immigration, the economy, and politics in America. The play first premiered in 2015 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF). It then went on open at Off-Broadway in 2016 and Broadway in 2017. Set in Reading, Pennsylvania, the play deals with the lives of middle-class, hardworking employees of a steel mill.

The title Sweat is apt for this poignant play. The playwright created the plot based on various experiences and interactions with workers and laborers. In fact, she spoke at the 1984 miners' strike in Britain and realized that she needed to do more for people who suffered the most due to changes in industrial processes and the loss of jobs. Lynn Nottage started working on the play in 2011. She interviewed many residents in Reading. She focused on the high poverty rate in the region and how immigration changed the demo graphs, thus impacting the lives of locals and immigrants.

More Background Information and Plot Summary

The Broadway version of Sweat - The Play was directed by Kate Whoriskey. She also directed the earlier versions in 2015 and 2016. The play opened on March 26, 2017, and closed on June 25 of the same year.

It opened in London at the Donmar Warehouse in 2018. Lynette Linton directed this version. It received good critical acclaim with a five-star review in the Morning Star newspaper. The production ran at the West End in June and July 2019.

Sweat won two Evening Standard Theater Awards in 2019 for Best Play and Best Director. It also won the Stage Debut Award as the Best Creative West End Debut the same year. The play was nominated for various awards like Tony Awards, Drama Desk Awards, etc. It went on to win the Obie Award in 2017 in the Playwriting category.

The play was set in 2000. The workers of a steel mill are shocked when hearing rumors of layoffs. They soon see posters for recruitment in the mill. The mill owners want to hire Latino workers for less pay.

This sparks unrest in the community, where the workers have been loyal to the mill for years and feel betrayed by the ruthless changes planned by the management.