Intimate Apparel

Writer
Lynn Nottage

Director
Dawn Walton

Location
The Carne Studio Theatre, LAMDA

Dates
Wednesday 9 February at 7:45pm
Friday 11 February at 7:45pm
Saturday 12 February at 2:15pm
Monday 14 February at 7:45pm
Tuesday 15 February at 2:15pm*

* The matinee performance on 15 February was a relaxed performance. Find out more.

About the show

'1905, New York City. Esther, a black seamstress, sews exquisite lingerie for clients who range from wealthy white patrons to prostitutes. She has saved enough to allow her to dream of one day opening a beauty salon for black women, and at thirty-five years old, longs for a husband and a future. When she begins to receive beautiful letters from a lonesome Caribbean man who is working on the Panama Canal, it looks like life may be about to take a different course'.

The running time is 2 hours 30 minutes including an interval.

View the Cast List View the Relaxed Performance Sensory Guide

About the writer, Lynn Nottage

Lynn Nottage is a double Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include: Mlima's Tale; Sweat (winner of the Pulitzer Prize); By the Way, Meet Vera Stark; Ruined (winner of the Pulitzer Prize); Intimate Apparel; Fabulation; Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Las Meninas; Mud, River, Stone; Por'knockers and POOF!

Nottage was the recipient of the 2010 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, a MacArthur Foundation 'Genius' Grant, the Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award, the inaugural Horton Foote Prize for Outstanding New American Play (for Ruined), the Lee Reynolds Award and the Jewish World Watch iWitness Award. Her other honours include the Madge Evans and Sidney Kingsley Award, the National Black Theatre Festival's August Wilson Playwriting Award, the 2005 Guggenheim Grant for Playwriting, the 2004 PEN/Laura Pels Award, and fellowships from the Lucille Lortel Foundation, the Manhattan Theatre Club, New Dramatists and New York Foundation for the Arts.

She is a co-founder and producer at Market Road Films LLC, a film production company.

About the director, Dawn Walton, OBE

Dawn was Founder, and former Artistic Director and Chief Executive, of Eclipse Theatre, the UK's principal Black-led national production company. In 2020 she was awarded the OBE for services to theatre.

Theatre includes The Death of a Black Man (Hampstead Theatre); Antigone (Mercury Theatre); The Gift (Eclipse Theatre/Belgrade Theatre/Theatre Royal Stratford East); salt (Schaubühne/Public Theater/Royal Court/Summerhall/Theatre Bristol/Yorkshire Festival. The Stage Edinburgh Award and Total Theatre Award for Experimentation, Innovation and Playing with Form); Red Dust Road (National Theatre of Scotland/EIF/HOME); Black Men Walking (Eclipse Theatre/Royal Court/Royal Exchange/UK Tour. Nominated for UK Theatre Award for Best New Play & Writer's Guild Award for Best Play); The Princess and the Hustler (Eclipse Theatre/Bristol Old Vic/UK Tour); A Raisin in the Sun (Eclipse Theatre/Crucible Theatre/UK Tour. Nominated for UK Theatre Award for Best Touring Production); One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show (Eclipse Theatre/Tricycle Theatre/UK Tour); Jonzi D - Lyrikal Feata: The Letter (Sadler’s Wells); Michael X (Eclipse Theatre/Tabernacle/Rich Mix); There's Only One Wayne Matthews (Crucible Theatre); The Hounding of David Oluwale (Eclipse Theatre/West Yorkshire Playhouse. Nominated for TMA Award for Best Director); Oxford Street (nominated for Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre), 93.2FM (also UK Tour), Rampage, Workers Writes, Drag-On, The Shining (all at Royal Court); Winners, The Blacks (Young Vic); Urban Legend (Liverpool Playhouse); Effie May (Oval House).

Television includes salt (Performance Director for BBC 4).

Film includes Samuel’s Trousers, 10by10, Babydoll, A Blues For Nia, Black Magic, Brown Widow, Music in the Bones, Omar, Parking Wars, Perfume, Rage, Two Tone.