There’s no doubt why Lynn Nottage’s drama Intimate Apparel won five national awards for best play, including the Drama Critics’ Circle Award and American Theatre Critics Association’s Primus Award. I’ve seen the cause twice before, and now North Coast Repertory Theatre will be offering a perfect marriage of inspired script and elegant production beginning January 10 and running through February 4, 2024.
As the title suggests, clothes play a big part in this generous play. Based on the author’s great-grandmother, Esther Mills is a 35-year-old African-American seamstress who’s running low on hope. Esther’s elegant sewing and exquisite corsets and lingerie gain her entry to more than just the boarding house where she occupies an attic room and receives sage advice from matronly confidante Mrs. Dickson. Indomitable Esther serves two very different clients — the sex-loving, man-wary Harlem prostitute Mayme and Mrs. Van Buren, an opium-sniffing, Upper West Side white entertainer with a failed marriage and a secret longing.
Esther begins a series of missives with George, a strapping, fetching, and younger Caribbean man working on the Panama Canal. The letters may be often romantic, but then there’s an improbable secret admirer in Garment District entrepreneur Mr. Marks. Under Esther’s enthusiastic influence, this Jewish fabric merchant develops a love for color that defies his Orthodox prudery.
Intimate Apparel Cast: (front) Madeleine Barker, Nedra Snipes. Arizsia Staton,
(back) Donald Paul, Teri Brown & Jonathan Fisher Jr.
Directed by Jasmine Bracey, the cast features Madeleine Barker, Teri Brown, Jonathan Fisher Jr, Donald Paul, Nedra Snipes and Arizsia Staton bringing together a remarkable ensemble of characters. The design team, featuring Marty Burnett (Set Design), Matthew Novotny (Light Design), Elisa Benzoni (Costume Design), Evan Eason (Sound Design), Cindy Rumley (Prop Design), Matt FitzGerald (Projection Design) and Peter Herman (Hair & Wigs Design) creates a visually stunning backdrop that will capture the essence of the early 20th-century New York.
Lynn Nottage’s plays are filled with commentary, but she does so in a lyrical and intelligent fashion. Her examination of race, society, and class — in an era during which many of the freedoms we take for granted were taboo — sheds light on the universal themes of loneliness, fitting in, and getting ahead. Don’t miss it.
(front) Nedra Snipes, (middle) Madeleine Barker, Arizsia Staton (back) Donald Paul
photos by Aaron Rumley
Intimate Apparel
North Coast Repertory Theatre
987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive in Solana Beach
Wed and Thurs at 7 (previews at 8); Fri at 8; Sat at 2 & 8; Sun at 2 & 7
plays January 10 through February 4, 2024
for tickets, call 858.481-1055 or visit North Coast Rep
