Lynn Nottage Archives - Chicago Reader

MJ delves into the chaos and glory of Michael Jackson

by Cristalle Bowen August 18, 2023August 18, 2023

Double Michaels! Triple threats! Joe Jackson’s aggression! MJ the Musical titillates in a new touring production of the Broadway hit navigating the chaotic life of King of Pop Michael Jackson, highlighting the challenges public and private during his 1992-93 Dangerous world tour. The Pepsi-Cola-sponsored global event went on to gross $140 million for Jackson’s Heal […]

A line of four people in a restaurant kitchen. From left, we see a Latinx man in a red T-shirt and wearing a bandana on his head; a Black woman with long pink braids; a Black man in a yellow dashiki and head covering, and a white man in a black T-shirt and backwards baseball cap who is covered in tattoos.

Theater Review

Clyde’s shows off the sunnier side of Sweat

by Kerry Reid September 22, 2022September 29, 2022

Let’s get this out of the way immediately: any similarities between Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s, now in its local premiere at the Goodman, and the Hulu series The Bear are purely coincidental. (Honestly? Though I’ve read several essays about it, I haven’t watched the latter yet. I know!) Yes, they are both set in the kitchen […]

A Black woman in early 1900s lingerie strikes a pose in front of a Black woman in a white dress, who is seated in a room with a chaise lounge, work table, and a mannequin

Theater Review

The fabric of romance

by Kelly Kleiman April 27, 2022April 27, 2022

In Tasia A. Jones’s impeccable production, Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel is as beautiful as the title garments, and its characters as fragile. Set in 1905, the play follows the efforts of seamstress Esther (the perfect Mildred Marie Langford) to reconcile her desire for love and marriage with her ambition to open her own business. Whether […]

A Black woman in a white dress from the early 1900s sits center stage at a sewing machine. A sepia-toned photo of a woman at a sewing machine is projected behind her.

Ghost Light

Lynn Nottage makes it work

by Kerry Reid April 22, 2022April 22, 2022

If you’re up for journeys to the suburbs this weekend, it’s possible to see two plays by Lynn Nottage; Sweat, which earned Nottage her second Pulitzer Prize in 2017, is closing Sunday in Aurora at Paramount Theatre’s new Copley black-box space. (Reader contributor Catey Sullivan called the production, directed by Andrea J. Dymond, “gripping” and […]

A white woman in a flannel shirt and baseball cap sits left at a bar table. A Black woman stands to the right next to the table. Behind them is the rest of the bar and other patrons in soft focus.

Theater Review

Sweat, tears, and blood

by Catey Sullivan March 31, 2022March 31, 2022

Lynn Nottage’s gripping drama Sweat launches a new direction for Aurora’s Paramount Theater, a 1,000-plus seat, 87-year-old Versailles-on-acid space known for award-winning musicals. Directed by Andrea J. Dymond, Sweat is the first production in the new Copley Theatre, a minimalist steel-and-glass black box across the street from the larger venue. Dymond’s airtight ensemble makes the […]

A soldier in tan camouflage and a red beret stands behind a woman in an African dress, holding her arms. Another soldier seated on the right grabs her face.

Theater Review

‘They’re safer with me than at home’

by Amanda Finn February 22, 2022February 22, 2022

Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Ruined can be hard to watch at times. Set in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, Nottage’s Mama Nadi (Tekeisha Yelton-Hunter) runs a pool hall where the women don’t just serve beer. Mama Nadi’s brothel is a place of refuge for the men on either side of the civil war […]