Sweat by Lynn Nottage

Playwright Lynn Nottage’s 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning play tells the story of steel plant workers in Reading, PA who must contend with fallout from a changing economy and trade agreements. Set mostly in a bar where a group of work friends gather, the play exposes how the workers’ relationships evolve and dissolve as they are pitted against each other in labor disputes. Sweat is one of the texts of Ursinus’ foundational Common Intellectual Experience (CIE) course. Full of heart and real-life humor, this insightful play centers around such issues as industrial decline, the economy, equity, inclusion, and distinctions of race, class, gender, and age. “What Nottage captures brilliantly is the way work, however hard or demanding, gives people an identity and purpose … I can’t think of any recent play that tells us so much, and so vividly, about the state of the union.” — Michael Billington, The Guardian $8 General Admission $5 Students, Seniors, & Ursinus Faculty/Staff