Lynn Nottage, Intimate Apparel, 2004

 

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.

Intimate Apparel won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and the American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Award when it opened in 2004. It had its UK premiere at the Theatre Royal Bath, before transferring to Park Theatre, London, in 2014. [Source]

Lynn Nottage