Three years ago, the Guthrie premiered the new play
Floyd's (which had its Broadway premiere as
Clyde's earlier this past season) by two-time Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Lynn Nottage, a companion piece to one of her Pulitzer Prize winners,
Sweat. The Guthrie was supposed to produce that play in the summer of 2020, which of course it didn't, but
good things come to those who wait. Both plays were created based on an extensive series of interviews by Lynn and Kate Whoriskey (frequent collaborator and original director of both plays) with the people of Reading, Pennsylvania. The 2010 census determined that Reading had the highest poverty rate out of all cities in America with a population over 65,000, making it a microcosm of what was happening in the greater U.S. during the recession. The first play to come out of these interviews,
Sweat is a grittily real, painfully American, and beautifully human story of a group of friends whose lives are torn apart by poverty, drug abuse, racism, and violence.
