3 0 obj A truck-stop diner is a space of transition, she says. The sandwich that they are struggling with is not complete until everyone makes a contribution. Lynn Nottage's Clyde's has made its way to Houston's Ensemble Theatre after its 2021 world premiere on Broadway and its subsequent productions across the United States where it was listed as the . a memory play about teenagers struggling to cope with their mothers death. How economic stagnation is reshaping the American narrative on stage. ee#{Jn`j}$O3$x;$3$22)C"3c\lljI%&EI>rxyY^NQ31(Oi9{lPe,yuL*wfIsUQX_8}%g`Mx*fgd0YZ[W^Wr@;t The problem is that Wilettas got a real artist inside herI want to be an actress! she says in the middle of a reverieand she learns the new method a bit too well. CLYDE'S by Lynn Nottage Under the watchful eye of the titular character, Clyde's follows the kitchen staff of a truck stop in a small PA town. Young, left, plays Tish who stole some oxy and addy to sell on the side. And Salazar, as Rafael, held up a bank to buy his girlfriend a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Letitia has served time for stealing from a pharmacy to ensure that her special needs daughter is well cared for. That same year, Second Stage also premieres. It's useful to have that other. A truck stop sandwich shop in Pennsylvania. Clyde's Photo Gallery. <>/Metadata 63 0 R/ViewerPreferences 64 0 R>> The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. We are living in Greek times or so you might conclude from the preponderance of Greek tragedies turned out by todays playwrights. She is a professor of Playwriting at Columbia University. "The feel-good play of the season!" -Adam Feldman, Time Out New YorkWatch a sneak peek of Clyde's by Lynn Nottage, directed by Kate W. a runaway hit exploring 70 years in the life of a (fictional) Hollywood starlet. She rages through the kitchen, spewing just enough bile to get the objects of her tyranny complaining again, but shes never subjected to the kind of scrutiny that makes watching a character worthwhile. 2001: After taking some time away around the birth of her daughter, Nottage returns to the theater with. Even as the shops menacing owner, Clyde, tries to keep them under her thumb, the staff members are given purpose and permission to dream by their shared quest to create the perfect sandwich. Still, wheres the action? vi|IgOUZi3#Q_`njK2YO1t0)lxxQeUX./OmrI@|2eVp&wC>% 8@c  !8nvlDux?Q8p2;wpn|?4~!2VL q'pq&+yW ]o f "}Dp\ ^F Uzo Aduba as Clyde and Ron Cephas Jones as Montrellous in Lynn Nottages latest play, Clydes, at the Helen Hayes Theater in Manhattan. In Intimate Apparel, the bedroom. She always wants the sandwiches to come out faster, and she has no patience for the culinary ambition thats growing in the kitchen under her nose. By putting them into a character whose goal is in fact to educate, and by blowing them up into amusing overstatements, she keeps the play itself from becoming gassy. 'Clyde's' Review: Sometimes a Hero Is More Than Just a Sandwich Sad tales are divots for us to navigate between laughs. I was interested in people whose lives have been interrupted. Playwrights sometimes do the same. She delivers her lines expertly and with great conviction. 2018: The Public premieres Mlimas Tale, which follows the ghost of a slaughtered elephant. 2023 Cond Nast. Clyde's by Lynn Nottage explores economic stagnation in the US PERFORMANCE FEE: $130 per performance. Lynn Nottage's plays include 'Crumbs from the Table of Joy,' 'Fabulation' and 'Intimate Apparel,' for which she was awarded the Francesca Primus Prize and the American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Award in 2004. As the joints proprietor, Clyde (Uzo Aduba), enjoys pointing out, shes the only employer in Reading, Penn., who will hire morons like them. 'Ruined' is the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and . At Studio Theatre, Lynn Nottage's 'Clyde's' serves up hope and humor Her plays have been produced at theaters throughout the country. 40 N. 2nd Street Clyde's by Lynn Nottage 2023 | UpNext The play theyre rehearsing, slated for Broadway, is about small-town Black folks who, because they want the right to vote, get threatenedand worseby a gathering lynch mob. This was my first time at a performing arts theatre since late February 2020, and it was a delicious treat. Crumbs from the Table of Joy and Other Plays: Nottage, Lynn (Another character suffers a traumatic brain injury in the process.) The Goodman is located at 170 N. Dearborn St. Elaine Hegwood Bowen, M.S.J., is the Entertainment Editor for the Chicago Crusader. <> 1 0 obj In the kitchen of a truck stop diner near Reading, PA, a group of formerly incarcerated cooks work together to get their shot at redemption. Seductive. Thats the only thing we ever really learnor, at least, think we learnabout Clyde. Creating the perfect sandwich is the shared quest of the formerly incarcerated kitchen staff of Clydes, a truck stop cafe. September 27th preview performance of Clyde's. The script does contain strong language and discussions of violence and drug use. The seeds of great stories have appeared from her childhood, part of the terrain of everyday life. The play takes place in Clydes, a truck stop sandwich shop frequented by truckers making the long journey across Pennsylvania. People who have seen Sweat will recognize him as one of the perpetrators of a heinous attack on a Colombian American busboy at the climax of that play, also set in Reading. That they discover the power of that imagination in the most unlikely way, by making food, is what makes the play funny. Lynn Nottage's Clyde's, Starring Uzo Aduba, Opens November 23 on Join StageAgent today and unlock amazing theatre resources and opportunities. Lynn Nottage is an American playwright whose work often deals with the lives of marginalized people. Shes not the only cynical one: her castmate Millie (the very funny Jessica Frances Dukes) is in a wry fury about how poorly shes served by the roles shes made to play. The Balzer Theater at Herrens After Clydes, the other most popular shows include some crowd-pleasing entertainments the comedy Chicken & Biscuits, a stage adaptation of Clue, the musical Once alongside more challenging fare, like Nottages play Sweat. After Nottage and Gunderson, the most-produced playwrights are Matthew Lpez, August Wilson and Dominique Morisseau. Into this uncomfortable equilibrium comes Jason (Edmund Donovan), recently out of prison and covered with white supremacist tattoos. $3X2),sDzGX$,W\lX>-;+I+w!^F$^Y)|)CS.fxths 1993: Lynn Nottage makes her professional debut with the Actors ' Theatre of Louisville's production of Poof, a one-act comedy about a woman whose abusive husband spontaneously combusts. Lynn Nottages new play, Clydes, directed by Kate Whoriskey (at the Helen Hayes), about the staff of a run-down sandwich joint at a truck stop, takes a stark either-or stance regarding the lives of its characters. A one-time nonprofessional fee of $300.00 (plus shipping and handling) will be added. A Lynn Nottage play often makes use of a liminal space. PDF CLYDE'S By: Lynn Nottage CHARACTER BREAKDOWN She speaks about the idea of theatre as a form of archive, an idea she credits to the late George Bass, a teacher who was an influence at Brown University. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Clydes opened on Broadway in November of 2021. on Broadway, while across town at the Met, Nottage collaborates with composer Ricky Ian Gordon to producer the opera version of. The three other cooks, with their softball crimes, begin to seem a pinch too adorable. Each character in Lynn Nottage's play shares a common bit of history-each has been incarcerated. CLYDE'S By: Lynn Nottage CHARACTER BREAKDOWN Director: Alex Rodriguez Rehearsal Start Date: July 9, 2023 Production Dates: August 18-September 17, 2023 . 1995: Nottage enters the NYC theater scene with Por'Knockers, a political satire that played at the Vineyard Theatre. Though it ultimately rejects the Greek model, it is still about gods and mortals. And these distractions and a ghosted date with Letitia cause him to fall off the wagon and begin using drugs again. 2003: Inspired by her grandmothers persistence as a New York City seamstress, Nottage writes Intimate Apparel; the play debuts at Baltimore Center Stage to widespread critical acclaim, and Nottage becomes one of the nations most prominent theatrical figures. But they were people who werent seen by popular culture. I decided that I could research what her life would have been like. Clyde's (Play) Plot & Characters | StageAgent Still, the most interesting people, onstage and in our lives, hold on to a whiff of mystery. In Sweat, a dive bar. In Ruined, women prove to be the real targets in the Congolese civil war. 2004: Nottage follows up her success with, Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine, 2008: After several years of research, Nottage wins her first Pulitzer for, 2011: Nottage goes for bright, nuanced, comedy with. This ritual stayed with her. 2003: Inspired by her grandmothers persistence as a New York City seamstress, Nottage writes. Clyde (Uzo Aduba) is the badass, shit-talking, intermittently horny, sometimes violent proprietor of the roadside shop. Pulitzer-winning playwright Lynn Nottage has three new works in - NPR Clydes is suggested for ages 13 and up. She begins asking questions that the script, and her director, just cant answer. Clyde's centres around a truck-stop diner. Purchase a subscription for the 2023/24 Season. 2022: Clydes joins MJ on Broadway, while across town at the Met, Nottage collaborates with composer Ricky Ian Gordon to producer the opera version of Intimate Apparel. Speaking of justification, Trouble in Mindthe 1955 play by Alice Childress, now making its much belated dbut on Broadway (directed by Charles Randolph-Wright for Roundabout Theatre Company, at the American Airlines Theatre)slowly unravels an aging actress named Wiletta (LaChanze), who is reluctantly exposed to an acting approach that asks her to find emotions to support the actions of her character. Its hard to figure out how seriously to take the putatively tough moments in Clydes, or what to do with the biographies were offered. Nottage, 58, would go on to become the first woman in history to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama twice and only the second playwright of colour to become a two-time winner, after August Wilson. "Feisty comedy is on the menu" ( Washington Post) in two . He leads the group in sessions of visualization and conjecturewhat kind of sandwich can your mind conjure up? This is supposed to deepen the bonds among them, and, perhaps, to offer a well of complexity not often granted to working-class people chewed up by the system and given a harsh set of choices: eat shit, starve, or go back in. I found a passport photograph of [my grandmother] with my great-grandmother and sister. And the series of fantastical sandwiches Montrellous creates, inspiring the others to make their own as a way of dreaming big, threatens to convert from a leitmotif into an annoyance when it is forced to bear too much meaning. The American Theater lists are based on a survey of theaters that are members of Theater Communications Group; in the 2019-20 season, respondents reported planning to stage 2,229 full-run shows; this season, even with the first-time addition of audio and streaming shows, as well as productions on Broadway, the count is only 1,298. Part of my desire as I got older was to amplify some of the beautiful and important and tragic stories that I heard.. Clydes, which opened on Broadway late last year, featured Edmund Donovan as one of several ex-cons-turned-sandwich-makers. Though not indifferent to suffering, she tells Montrellous, she doesnt do pity, which is an understatement. Celebrated creative collaborators for more than two decades, the two women return to the Goodman with Clydes, which launched the Goodmans 2022/2023 Season. Theres something alien and ineffable about them that cant be reduced to mere facts, or be rationalized by psychology. I think the most poignant moment is the very end where they are all making a sandwich together, she says. Theatrical Outfit 2023 | The Balzer Theater at Herrens | 84 Luckie Street | Atlanta, GA 30303. Clyde's is a part of a long lineage of Nottage's renowned plays-often directed by Whoriskey-that champion the stories of poor and working-class underdogs. So is the ability to find light and humour in the darkest situations. Rafael is a considerate co-worker who just wants peace around the workspacewhich can become very heated and nosey at times. Nottage tells me she understood how to write the play when she came across the Japanese notion of wabi sabi, the ability to find beauty in things that are broken. Clyde's - Goodman Theatre Clydes just hit the sweet spot it has a multiracial cast, it addresses issues of incarceration and racial tension, its a comedy, and its really smart, and its by a Pulitzer winner, said Rob Weinert-Kendt, the editor in chief of American Theater and an occasional contributor to The New York Times. Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. >H|MF. She wears formfitting clothes that highlight her curves and pedestal her dcolletage. We dont at first get the story of how Montrellous (Ron Cephas Jones) wound up behind bars, but he is so saintly that Letitia, called Tish, believes it must have been elective. Down on their luck and released from prison, the small team has battled addiction, explosive anger, poverty, and more in Lynn Nottage's "Clyde's" at the Huntington Theatre Company mainstage . I am beyond thrilled to be returning to the Goodman Theatre, which has been so instrumental in nurturing me as a theater artist, said playwright Nottage, whose works at the Goodman include Sweat (2019), By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2013), Ruined (her Pulitzer Prize-winning world-premiere Goodman commission and co-production with Manhattan Theatre Club, 2008) and Crumbs from the Table of Joy (2006). In Sweat, steelworkers resisting their union-busting management inexorably wind up busting one another. Tish (Kara Young, who spins great performances out of straw in every show I see her in) is a single mom saddled by a trifling, untrustworthy co-parent. Lynn Nottages Clydes Is the Most-Staged Play in America, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/theater/most-popular-plays-playwrights.html. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Philadelphia, PA 19106 Her two Pulitzer Prizes are for works in which the world and its people are trapped in an abusive relationship. It is also about community, healing, creativity, mindfulness and forgiveness, she said. Here, those skills are tossed aside. Lynn Nottage has sometimes been one of them. All rights reserved. Clyde is an ex-convict, and so are the people who work for her, a fact that she hangs over their heads like rain in a cloud at every opportunitynobody else is going to hire them, so theyd better submit to her whims, however brutal. ClydesThrough Jan. 16 at the Helen Hayes Theater, Manhattan; 2st.com. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. People are there for short periods of time to seek sustenance and then they move on. Second Stage Theater's production of Lynn Nottage's new play CLYDE'S opens tonight, Tuesday November 23, 2021, at Second Stage's Broadway home, the Hayes Theater (240 W 44th Street at 8th Avenue). Karamu House's five-show 2023-24 season to kick off with Lynn Nottage's