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Sweat is a 2015play by American playwrightLynn Nottage.^[1] It won the 2017Pulitzer Prize for Drama.^[2] The play premiered at theOregon Shakespeare Festival in 2015; it was producedOff-Broadway in 2016 and onBroadway in 2017. The play is centered on theworking class ofReading, Pennsylvania.

• Evan - African-American, forties; Jason and Chris'sParole Officer. Evan exists only in the 2008 timeline
• Jason - white American of German Descent, twenty-one/twenty-nine; Jason is the son of Tracey and former close friend of Chris
• Chris - African-American, twenty-one/twenty-nine; Chris is the son of Cynthia and Brucie and aspires to attend college. He is the former close friend of Jason
• Stan - white American of German descent, fifties; Stan runs the bar the characters frequent
• Oscar - Colombian-American, twenty-two/thirty; Oscar initially works at the bar with Stan, but goes on to work at the factory
• Tracey - white American of German descent, forty-five/fifty-three. Tracey is the mother of Jason
• Cynthia - African-American, forty-five/fifty-three. Cynthia is the mother of Chris and former wife of Brucie
• Jessie - Italian-American, forties
• Brucie - African-American, forties. Brucie is the father of Chris and former husband of Cynthia

The play portrays a meeting between a parole officer and two ex-convicts, and three women who were childhood friends and had worked in the same factory.^[1] Most of the action takes place in a fictional bar^[3] inReading, Pennsylvania.^[4]

There are a group of friends that work for the steel factory, named Tracey, Cynthia and Jessie. Tracey is a middle-aged white woman. She loves to hang out at the bar with her friends and she has a gruff kind of humor. She cannot stand the way Reading has been changing over the years. Her friend Cynthia is a black woman who also loves to hang out with her friends at the bar and is a hardworking woman in the factory. She is on and off with her husband, Brucie, who is addicted to drugs. During the play, Cynthia applies and is hired for a managing job at the plant which causes tension. Jessie, another worker at the factory, is not so happy with how her life has turned out and has a problem with alcohol abuse. This is shown in many of the bar scenes. Stan, the bartender, used to work at the plant, but he was injured in a factory accident. Oscar, the busboy at the bar, is Colombian and is not acknowledged often by the patrons. Some characters use xenophobic slurs towards Latinos and show him that he isn't welcome in the Olstead factory. Jason is a white man who is Tracey's son. His best friend is Chris, Cynthia’s son. They both work at the factory and worry that they will be laid off. They both are arrested for assault and are released eight years later.

Nottage shifts in time, switching scenes and showing events of eight years earlier.Variety quotes the bartender, Stan, as warning the other characters that "You could wake up tomorrow and all your jobs are in Mexico", to which the characters respond with lethargy and disbelief.Variety described Nottage as going into "the heart of working-class America".^[5] Reviews of the play have described the characters as representing blue-collar workers who voted inDonald Trump as president.^[6]

The play also examines the disintegration of a friendship, after two of the women – one white, one black – apply for the same management job. The latter character gets the position, but soon the company moves jobs to Mexico. The trade union goes on strike, and company managementlocks out the workers. The management/worker division begins to separate the friends, and racial tensions separate them further.^[4]

Lynn Nottage, originally born and raised in Brooklyn, New York wrote the award-winning play,Sweat. Lynn Nottage began working on the play in 2011 by interviewing numerous residents of Reading, Pennsylvania, which at the time was, according to theUnited States Census Bureau, officially one of thepoorest cities in America,^[6] with a poverty rate of over 40%.^[7] The play was produced off-Broadway in 2016, and on-Broadway in 2017, eventually winning the Pulitzer prize award for drama in 2017. Nottage has said that she was particularly influenced by aNew York Times article reporting on the city specifically, and by theOccupy Wall Street movement more generally. Before this, her inspiration came from her family. Mainly the women in her family who were teachers, activists, and artists. She witnessed these strong spoken women growing up, and wanted to do the same herself. She explored the effects on residents of the loss ofheavy industry and the changing ethnic composition of the city.^[8] She has compared her time talking to former steelworkers in Reading with the occasion when she stayed in the town ofMansfield in theEnglish Midlands and interviewed workers during the1984 miners' strike.^[8] Nottage herself even spoke at the strike, which is what made her realize she had to do more. Seeing the effects of job loss and the economic struggle these people were facing first hand is what truly inspired her work for the playSweat.

The play has been described as "a powerful and emotional look at identity, race, economy, and humanity."^[9]

The play's political context has also been noted. Reviews focused on the similarities between the portrayal of theindustrial working class in aRust Belt town, and that being a significant area and demographic in the2016 United States presidential election.^[9] TheWall Street Journal review suggested the play "explained" Trump's win.^[10] It said that the city was "synonymous with deindustrialisation", for the effects there of loss of heavy industry and related jobs.^[10]

The New Yorker said the play was "the first theatrical landmark of the Trump era".^[7] It also suggested that the play was reminiscent of the "working-class naturalism" ofClifford Odets, a playwright of the 1930s.^[7] The characters portrayed were associated with Trump's election campaign phrase of "the forgotten people".^[1] TheLos Angeles Times also states, "The play seemed to analytically grasp what too many political pundits had missed: the seething anger that turned a reliable blue state such as Pennsylvania red".

Sweat was first performed at theOregon Shakespeare Festival in 2015 before playing at theArena Stage inWashington, D.C. that year.^[4][11]

After starting previews on October 18, 2016,Sweat openedOff-Broadway atThe Public Theater on November 3, 2016. It closed on December 18, 2016 to transfer toBroadway. Directed by Kate Whoriskey (who also directed the earlier productions), the cast featuredCarlo Alban (Oscar), James Colby (Stan), Khris Davis (Chris),Johanna Day (Tracey),John Earl Jelks (Brucie), Will Pullen (Jason),Miriam Shor (Jessie), Lance Coadie Williams (Evan), and Michelle Wilson (Cynthia).^[5][12] The production began previews on Broadway atStudio 54 on March 4, 2017, before opening on March 26.^[13] The production closed on June 25, 2017, after 105 performances.^[14]

A London production opened at theDonmar Warehouse on 7 December 2018, running until 2 February 2019. The play was directed byLynette Linton, and featured Clare Perkins andMartha Plimpton as the mothers and Osy Ikhile (Chris) and Parick Gibson (Jason).^[15] A five-star review of the production by Peter Mason in theMorning Star newspaper describedSweat as "a tension-filled drama with a turbulent, consuming plot and a cast of highly engaging characters who demand attention from the off," adding of the Donmar cast that "it would be difficult to imagine a better set of players to take on the difficult task of portraying such complex individuals".^[16] The production transferred to theWest End'sGielgud Theatre, running from 7 June 2019 to 20 July.^[17]

TheGuthrie Theater ran a production from July 16 to August 21, 2022.^[18] Rohan Preston of theStar Tribune wrote of a key scene, saying "it puts an emotional capstone on a play that gives voice to some of the aches and frustrations that animate a nation unmoored by job displacement, thwarted dreams and self-medication."^[19]

ASydney Theatre Company production ran from 15 November to 22 December 2024.^[20]

• Internet Broadway Database
• Internet Off-Broadway Database

• 2015 plays
• Broadway plays
• Plays about race and ethnicity
• Plays by Lynn Nottage
• Plays set in Pennsylvania
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners

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