Sweat Archives - Chicago Reader

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.

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 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 […]