The play is set both on the eve and in the twilight of George W. Bushs presidency. Tracey is a middle-aged white woman of German descent; she's Jason 's mother and Hank 's widow. Online Audition Submissions Checklist, 2) Upload your head shot, resume, and link to your video audition to this audition form: https://forms.gle/uAnVNMz2Q6qMVvsPA. Some of these, such as Traceys speech about the devaluing of manual labor, have a poignant lyricism. If he was here I wouldnt stop you. Sweat, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Lynn Nottage, gives stellar examples of successful characterization. Tracey (Jasons mother), Cynthia (Chriss mother), and their friend Jessie are celebrating Traceys birthday at a local bar in Reading, Pennsylvania. Eventually, everyone but Tracey shows up, and Cynthia and Jessie reminisce about their early days at the factory. var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; Though the women are friendly with Stan, they do not acknowledge Oscar as he works in the background. However, we pay actors a small stipend for expenses and a portion of performance donations in accordance with AB5. Let it be enough to say that each actor locates the rich humanity in his or her character, and transmits it to the audience with deceptive ease. But to get to the heart of the matter: Sweat opens with scenes set in 2008, depicting a parole officer (Tyrone Wilson) in meetings with two ex-convicts, imprisoned for their involvement in the same crime, who have come through the system with deeply divergent results. Anyone can read what you share. Weve just come Start: Every since her father hung himse Start: Management is for them. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley is now accepting video auditions for an online workshop reading of SWEAT by Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, directed by Tracy Baxter. Thats all I need to know. Instead, to Chriss obvious amazement: Were hugging. He, too, worked in the factory, as did his father and grandfather, until an accident caused by a faulty machine almost cost him a leg. Cynthia tells Tracey and Stan about how she recently kicked out her estranged husband, Brucie, againhes been abusing drugs ever since he was locked out of his job at a local textile mill. New York, NY, Accessibility Statement Terms Privacy |StageAgent 2020. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chris agreeshe doesnt want to end up like Brucie. Oscar aint getting rich off your misery. Review: Lynn Nottages Sweat Examines Lives Unraveling by Industrys Demise, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/theater/review-lynn-nottages-sweat-examines-lives-unraveling-by-industrys-demise.html. (including. The play was produced Off-Broadway in 2016 and on Broadway in 2017. Cynthia understands, but she asks Tracey not to make things about race, and she promises to let everyone know if she hears anything about the rumored layoffs. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. Cynthia shares Chriss news about Albright, and Brucie disapproves of the tuition cost and of Chris leaving Olsteads. Jason has come to beg Tracey for money, but shes hostile and unwelcoming. Stan slams a baseball bat down on the bar and orders Jason to sit, but Jason blocks Oscar from leaving and begins to beat him. Upgrade to PRO More trouble comes when rumors of layoffs begin swirling, and Cynthia finds herself caught between her duties as a manager and her sympathy with her friends in the union. No one saw that coming. Teacher Editions with classroom activities for all 1725 titles we cover. Jason is horrified to realize that Tracey is highit seems she developed an addiction to pain medication while Jason was in prison. Note: We are restricted by licensing concerns to casting to type. [] I betcha they wanted a minority. hb```d`~1!Ru|G/Vgk`#k[-85?J.YI{fU4/xu.13bj78a$B3x+J%Rn-p]?ORZf4(sH#6Y. Struggling with distance learning? Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize. Sweat Character Tracey Gender Female Age Range Adult, Mature Adult Style Dramatic Act/Scene Act One, Scene Five Time & Place April 2000, Outside a bar Length Long Time Period Contemporary Show Type Play Tags worker working class memory nostalgia family legacy emotional Context Tracey is outside the bar smoking. I do. Its searing and human. After a long work shift at Olsteads mill, three middle-aged female friendsan African American woman named Tracey, an Italian American woman named Jessie, and a German American woman named Cynthiahang out at Stans bar. (Both Chris and Jason, not incidentally, also work at the plant, although Chris has higher aspirations.) You'll also get updates on new titles we publish and the ability to save highlights and notes. For rehearsals and performances youll need a computer, a stable internet connection (at least 3 MBS upload speed), and a quiet performance space, preferably without windows. But, unbeknownst to them, their lives are about to be uprooted. Hes an avuncular type who keeps the peace when necessary, with the help of his Dominican bar-back, Oscar (Carlo Albn). (The Nafta treaty is invoked with four-letter opprobrium.). JASON: [] Eleven dollars an hour? It aint his fault. TRACEY: Listen, that piece of paper youre holding is an insult, it dont mean anything, Olsteads isnt for you. Join StageAgent today and unlock amazing theatre resources and opportunities. More heat. Oscar plays a handheld video game behind the bar. Jason grabs the baseball bat and hits Oscar in the stomach, and as he swings back to hit him again, he accidentally strikes Stan in the head. For that reason alone, the arrival on Broadway of Sweat, which originated at the fertile Oregon Shakespeare Festival and was previously staged in New York at the Public Theater, warrants serious applause. Esther Intimate Apparel 3 So does the fact that it marks the belated Broadway debut of Ms. Nottage, a justly acclaimed dramatist of ambitious scope and fierce focus. Stan and Chris try to intervene, but Tracey and Jessie egg the fight on. Brucie ends up begging Cynthia for another chance, but she stays strong with Tracey and Jessies support. This poignant play takes a look at the de-industrial revolution through the lens of a history play, but also delves into the issues of today: the economy, immigration, race-relations in America, and politics. Scene 3. TRACEY: Well, I got you beat by two. Chris eventually becomes angry as well, and he joins Jason in beating Oscar. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. New York, NY, Accessibility Statement Terms Privacy |StageAgent 2020. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of Sweat by Lynn Nottage. New York, NY, SM for Poor Yella Rednecks Their steel mill, Olsteads, is making some changes and the blood, sweat and tears, not to mention the generations of loyalty these workers have shown, dont seem to amount to much. Lynn Nottage's Sweat gives us characters filled with the good and the bad and asks us to reflect on our own views and the views of . Review: Sweat Imagines the Local Bar as a Caldron, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/26/theater/sweat-review-broadway.html, From left, John Earl Jelks, Carlo Albn, Johanna Day, Michelle Wilson and Allison Wright in the play Sweat., From left, Johanna Day, Khris Davis, Carlo Albn and Will Pullen in Sweat.. Though it is steeped in social combustibility, Sweat often feels too conscientiously assembled, a point-counterpoint presentation in which every disaffected voice is allowed its how-I-got-this-way monologue. Call me selfish, I dont care, call me whatever you need to call me, but remember, one of us has to be left standing to fight. 0 It was a gift. The bar that is the principal location for Sweat, Lynn Nottages bracingly topical portrait of American dreams deferred in working-class Pennsylvania, is a place where friendships go to die. Posted in Auditions. The plot briefly shifts forward to 2008 with separate scenes of Jason and Chris visiting their mothers. Sweat moves fluidly between these passages (and others set elsewhere but at the same time) and scenes from eight years before, when the bulk of the action takes place. Presiding over Traceys informal birthday party and the subsequent, less festive birthdays of Jessie and Cynthia is Stan (Jack Willis), the bartender, though not the owner of the bar. When Stan attempts to break up the fight, Jason accidentally hits him in the head with a baseball bat, causing a traumatic brain injury. for only $13.00 $11.05/page. That the people onstage are middle-class or lower-middle-class folks too rarely given ample time on American stages makes the play all the more vital a contribution to contemporary drama. Well. Also, a thank you to Theatre Bay Area for a grant of $2,500.00. Right? That Cynthia is black and Tracey and Jessie are white becomes an issue in a way it never was before. When Oscar returns, she hurls racial slurs and goes to lunge at him, but Stan holds her back. My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class., Requesting a new guide requires a free LitCharts account. However, Brucie tells him its pointlessChris should follow his dreams and get an education instead. 4) New to auditioning? The characters in this play dont have money or options and the walls are closing in fast, so for the SWEAT monologues were looking for raw yet vulnerable portrayals. document.getElementById('cloak8a2f2e70f3ae0d82a8dceea5de10147e').innerHTML = ''; Sweat is best at its muddiest, when love and hate, and the urges to strike out and to comfort, teeter in precipitous balance. Refine any search. Jason shows up too, which initially alarms Oscar. On the national news, George Bush, the Republican presidential candidate, is traveling in the Midwest. Ms. Nottages colloquial dialogue doesnt approach or even attempt his singing lyricism, but Jessie delivers a beautiful monologue about the life she might have led had she not, when still a teenager, started working in a factory. But I stood on line, patiently waiting for a break. So were Jasons mother, Tracey (Johanna Day), and Chriss mother, Cynthia (Michelle Wilson). Sign up today to unlock amazing theatre resources and opportunities. In September 2008, Jason, a man with white supremacist facial tattoos, meets with Evan, his African American parole officer. Ms. Nottageis writing at the peak of her powers NY Times. passionate and necessarya masterful depiction of the forces that divide and conquer usSWEAT communicates its points with minimal fuss and maximum grit. You appreciate Ms. Nottages insistence that we be able to trace exactly the sources of her characters unhappiness. Stan enters the room, wiping down tables just as Oscar did in the plays early scenes. Instant PDF downloads. On July 4, Chris and Jason run into Brucie at the bar, and they tell him that Olsteads moved three mills out of the factory over the holiday weekend. Well, my familys been here a long time. They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!, This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. The parolees are Jason (Will Pullen) and Chris (Khris Davis), and they were once the closest of friends. Struggling with distance learning? I dont think you get it, but if I walk away, Im giving up more than a job, Im giving up all that time I spent standing on line waiting for one damn opportunity. So did Stan (James Colby), the bartender, but he lost his job after a leg-maiming accident. ISBN 978-1-55936-532-1 for edition reference. Huh? Certainly I found myself squirming in my seat as I watched the forces of fate, or, to be more specific, the mechanics of 21st-century American capitalism, bear down on these characters with the brutal power of a jackhammer smashing through concrete. CYNTHIA: I didnt expect you to understand, babe. Gain full access to show guides, character breakdowns, auditions, monologues and more! %%EOF Mediation becomes increasingly necessary when Cynthia applies for and, to everyones surprise, wins a promotion to management, causing a painful rift with Tracey, who had also applied and resents being supervised by a former equal. The full script is available in print and e-book at multiple area libraries. -Graham S. The timeline below shows where the character Tracey appears in, is playing on a jukebox as a rowdy celebration winds down. Im cool with everyone. The play opens in a Reading parole office in 2008, panning back and forth between Jason and Chris. They built the house that I live in. Tracey's rude behavior toward Cynthia is driving a wedge in their decades-long friendship. CYNTHIA: Fuck her. From first moments to last, this compassionate but cleareyed play throbs with heartfelt life, with characters as complicated as any youll encounter at the theater today, and with a nifty ticking time bomb of a plot. Creating notes and highlights requires a free LitCharts account. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. Lynn Nottage explains how a broken city gets a turn onstage in her play "Sweat." There are rumors of imminent layoffs, though, which grow louder during the scenes set in 2000, along with. Our, "Sooo much more helpful thanSparkNotes. These scenes depict Tracey struggling with pill addiction, and Cynthia living in a small, cluttered, low-rent apartment. [] Im not prejudice, I say, you are who you are, you know? A few days later, Chris goes to the bar, where Oscar is now the manager. It makes meWhatever. Thats when Ms. Nottages characters, and the cast members who embody them, emerge in their full tragic humanity. Well, my familys been here for a long time. (LogOut/ TRACEY: [] It was back when if you worked with your hands people respected you for it. New York, NY, SM for Poor Yella Rednecks Oscar tells Tracey that him working at Olsteads isnt personal, but Tracey counters that to her, it is personal. Just as Oscar goes to take some beer crates to the back, Oscar walks back in, looking uncomfortably at, Olsteads isnt Oscars faulthes only trying to make a living just like they are. Jessie tells Stan that, Jessie says shes sick of being stuck in the middle between, motorcycle. So does the presence of Stans helper, Oscar (Carlo Albn), whose family comes from Colombia. PDF downloads of all 1725 LitCharts literature guides, and of every new one we publish. Aspirations to another life may be common among these people, but such hopes are widely resented when they show signs of becoming reality. I don't want this to be a big deal. Definitions and examples of 136 literary terms and devices. Through their barroom conversation, the women reveal that Jason has no future plans beyond factory work, and Chris has been accepted to college. Ernestine Crump Crumbs from the Table of Joy 0 Start: Because mostly I feel rage. The play flashes back to July 2000. Couldnt handle the stress. In 2000, Tracey and her best friends, Cynthia and Jessie, have worked at Olstead's Steel Tubing in Reading, Pennsylvania, for over 20 years. John Earl Jelks SWEAT was originally produced on Broadway at Studio 54 by Stuart Thompson and Louise L. Gund, premiering on March 26, 2017. Sweat is the first, properly muscular play of the Trump era, directly addressing the political and cultural bedrock of his presidency: Nottage has already won the 2016 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Sure, it looks awfully cozy and welcoming, and you can see why its denizens regard it as a second home. They built the house that I live in. PDFs of modern translations of every Shakespeare play and poem. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. Refine any search. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Chris remembers his fingernails digging into his palms. Though Cynthia and Tracey make light of such rumors, Stan is adamant that because of NAFTA, steel workers jobs could easily be outsourced to Mexico. Nottage's characters were based on personal research and interviews she conducted in Reading throughout 2011. Lynn Nottage explains how a broken city gets a turn onstage in her play Sweat., There are rumors of imminent layoffs, though, which grow louder during the scenes set in 2000, along with speculation that the entire plant might relocate to Mexico. Sweat is by no means a thinly dramatized op-ed piece. "They white,". You got a problem, you tell me to my face. LitCharts Teacher Editions. TRACEY: Yeah? You could wake up tomorrow and all your jobs are in Mexico, whatever, its this NAFTA bullshit.
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