Sweat by Lynn Nottage – A Staged Reading with the DSU Theater Department

Sweat is an Academy Award nominated and Pulitzer Prize winning drama by Lynn Nottage. The play portrays a meeting between a parole officer and two ex-convicts, and three women who were childhood friends working in the same factory. The action takes place in a fictional bar. Nottage shows how events take individuals on divergent pathways with the backdrop of job cuts, poverty and downsizing looming, although only the barman realizes what is truly at stake. ‘Us. Here. Now. The New American Drama Series’ is a joint project with Kayenta Arts Foundation and Dixie State University’s Department of Theatre. Professional Actors collaborate with Students in a series of staged readings. Presenting cutting-edge, award-winning drama by contemporary American Playwrights. Ranging from realism to the absurd, pathos to dark comedy, these plays engage some of our most urgent social concerns — the demise of industry, the vanishing middle class, race relations, social fragmentation, global warming to name a few. Each reading is preceded by a brief presentation on the playwright and the play. The presentation is followed by a conversation between audience, cast, and professor Kathryn Syssoyeva, about the themes of these rich new works, and their relevance to our own social and political realities. This is a “by donation” event. Suggested donation amount is $15.