Actor’s Express is continuing its 34th season with a production of Intimate Apparel.
The show by Lynn Nottage follows Esther, a seamstress who crafts beautiful lingerie for the well-to-do women uptown and the ladies of the night downtown in 1905. When she receives a letter from a mystery man in Panama, her world is turned upside down. Intimate Apparel beautifully weaves together themes of intimacy, feminism, class exploitation, love, and friendship through the lens of the Black female protagonist.
Nottage is the winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle and Outer Critics Circle Awards and remains the only woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice, for Sweat (2017) and Ruined (2009).
“Playwright Lynn Nottage has masterfully created one of the great characters of the American stage in Esther, the lonely seamstress whose own journey toward wholeness is reflected in the kaleidoscopic array of friendships she forms with disparate and divergent clients and associates, all of whom share a common sense of loneliness,” Actor’s Express Artistic Director Freddie Ashley said. “Nottage’s economy of language and structure is marvelous to behold.”
The show is directed by Ibi Owolabi, an Atlanta-based director whose work has been featured by the True Colors Theatre Company, 7 Stages, Theater Emory, and the Weird Sisters Theatre Project. Cast members include Vallea E. Woodbury, Valeka Jessica, Terry Henry, Jovan Christopher, Candi VandiZandi, and Ross Benjamin.
Intimate Apparel begins previews January 6 and opens January 8. Performances are Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm through February 6. Tickets start at $20 and can be purchased here.