New Dramatists: Lynn Nottage

	Lynn Nottage c/o Peter Hagan The Gersh Agency 41 Madison Avenue, 33rd Floor New York, NY 10010-2210 (212) 634-8115 (212) 391-8459 fax Email: newdramatists@newdramatists.org

Lynn Nottage is a playwright from Brooklyn. Her play, INTIMATE APPAREL (AT&T OnStage Award) most recently premiered at Center Stage and South Coast Rep. Her other plays include A WALK THROUGH TIME (a Children’s musical), CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY (nominated for an NAACP award), MUD, RIVER, STONE (finalist, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize), POR’KNOCKERS, POOF! (Heideman Award), and LAS MENINAS (AT&T OnStage Award). They have been produced Off-Broadway and regionally by The Acting Company, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Alliance Theatre, Buffalo Studio Arena, Center Stage, Crossroads Theatre, Freedom Theatre, Intiman, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Playwrights Horizons, Second Stage, San Jose Rep., South Coast Rep, Steppenwolf, Yale Rep., The Vineyard Theatre and many others. She just completed a new play, Fabulation, which was commissioned by Playwrights Horizons and is scheduled to premiere in their 2003-04 season. Ms. Nottage has been awarded Playwriting Fellowships from Manhattan Theatre Club, New Dramatists and the New York Foundation for the Arts, where she is a member of their Artists Advisory Board. She is also the recipient of a NEA/TCG (99/00) grant for a yearlong theatre residency at Freedom Theatre in Philadelphia. An anthology of her plays is slated to be published by TCG in Fall 2003. She is a member of New Dramatists and a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, where she is currently a visiting lecturer in playwriting.

INTIMATE APPAREL CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY MUD, RIVER, STONE POOF! POR’ KNOCKERS LAS MENINAS FABULATION A STONE'S THROW
_{lynn nottage} INTIMATE APPAREL Full-length Drama 2M, 4W Multiple Sets In the early 1900s, a talented African-American designer creates intimate apparel for New York Society Ladies and Prostitutes alike. Her life becomes romantically intertwined with her clientele, challenging the sexual taboos of the age. Commissioned by Center Stage and South Coast Rep. 2002-2003 season premiere. Roundabout, NYC 2004.
_{lynn nottage} CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE OF JOY Comedy/Drama, 110 Minutes 1M, 4W 1 Flexible Set The battle for the heart and mind of 17-year-old Ernestine is waged in a living room in Brooklyn in 1950. The contestants include the lively and glamorous Aunt Lily, Ernestine’s God-fearing father and a mysterious German refugee. As is Ernestine, the country is on the brink of transition. This coming of age tale evokes the poetry of change. “Imagine a pairing…between Tennessee Williams and Lorraine Hansberry, a memory play about a black family, a glass menagerie in the sun…Crumbs From the Table of Joy…is…a small window into the past, and this almost voyeuristic glimpse is worth attention.” –The New York Post “Crumbs From the Table of Joy, a complex thought-provoking play.” – Chicago Sun Times Second Stage (NYC); South Coast Rep (Costa Mesa); Yale Rep (New Haven); Crossroads (New Brunswick); Alliance Theatre (Atlanta); Steppenwolf (Chicago). Published by Dramatists Play Service.
_{lynn nottage} MUD, RIVER, STONE Full-length Drama 4M, 3W Unit Set An upper-middle class African American couple from New York embark on a trip to Mother Africa on a quest to “find their roots.” Along the way, a series of comic mishaps and a wrong turn on a muddy road lead to a frightening and revealing vacation they won’t soon forget. “Playwright Lynn Nottage pulls off a deft bait-and-switch with her new play: She seduces us into believing we’re settling into a sardonically funny vacation-from-hell travelogue, then brings in elements that are violent, disturbing, and deeply thought provoking.” – New York Newsday “Each of Nottage’s characters is a rich bundle of ideas and issues, as well as a sharp but sympathetic psychological portrait.” –The Village Voice The Acting Company; Buffalo Studio Arena; Playwrights Horizons; Finalist, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Published by Dramatists Play Service. Excerpts in Best Men’s Stage Monologues of 1997 (Smith & Kraus).
_{lynn nottage} POOF! Comedy, 12 Minutes 2W Single Set A housewife copes with life a few moments after her abusive husband spontaneously combusts, leaving a pile of ash on the kitchen floor. “Poof! is a very funny 10 minutes with some very serious overtones…Nottage poses an interesting question to the audience – if you really get what you wish for, are you ready to deal with the consequences?” – The Birmingham News “Poof!…is a dynamite short about a woman who damns her husband to hell, and he really goes there…Poof! is a hoot.” – Herald Times Actors Theatre of Louisville (Heideman Award); Produced by theatres throughout the world. Published in The American Voice, Humana Festival ’93 (Smith & Kraus).
_{lynn nottage} POR’ KNOCKERS Comedy/Drama, 55 minutes 5M, 1W Unit Set In New York City, a group of idealistic political activists stage a bold act of civil disobedience and must live with the devastating consequences. “Claiming responsibility for their bold act of civil protest was supposed to be the easy part – all it would take would be a simple phone call. But none of the group of four African American activists and their Jewish ally, gathered in a safe house in Brooklyn, can pick up the receiver and own up to the deed…Nottage renders this odd collection of romantics, who over the course of the play discover how fragmented their dream has become, through archetypal characterizations that delineate the extremely varied personalities…in the movement.” – American Theatre Dance Theater Workshop (Out of the Shadows Series); The Vineyard Theatre.
_{lynn nottage} LAS MENINAS Full-length Comedy 3M, 4W Multiple Sets The true story of the Seduction of Queen Marie Therese, and the consequences of her affair with Nabo, an African Servant of diminutive stature. The play is set in the court of Louis XIV. “Lynn Nottage shines a revealing, fiercely imaginative beam on the French Court...By shedding light on this obscured, somewhat fanciful tale of an African in King Louis Court, Nottage reveals contemporary truths about the racial divide.” —San Jose Mercury Premiered San Jose Rep. Workshops and readings at Mabou Mines/Suite, Hartford Stage, The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons and Brown University.
_{lynn nottage} FABULATION Full-length Comedy 4M, 4W Multiple Sets FABULATION is a social satire about an ambitious and haughty African-American woman, Undine Barnes-Calles, whose husband suddenly disappears after embezzling all of her money. Pregnant and on the brink of social and financial ruin, Undine retreats to her childhood home in Brooklyn’s Walt Whitman projects, only to discover that she must cope with a crude new reality. Undine faces the challenge of transforming her setbacks into small victories in a battle to reaffirm her right to be. FABULATION is a comeuppance tale with a comic twist. Workshopped during New Dramatists, PlayTime, 2002; Sundance, 2003. World Premiere: Playwrights Horizons, 2004.
_{lynn nottage} A STONE’S THROW 10 minutes 2 BW, 1 BM Inspired by Antigone, A Stone’s Throw examines a romantic African woman, who pays the ultimate price under Sharia law for allowing herself to fall in love with a married man. Included in the Antigone Project at the Women’s Project (2004-2005).



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