Intimate Apparel

November 4 - 13, 2011
The Lab Theatre
by Lynn Nottage
Directed by Robert Moss

It is 1905 in New York City. Esther, a 35-year-old spinster, sews beautiful lingerie…sexy lingerie. Her talents and discretion are in much demand and her clients range from wealthy Fifth Avenue wives to Tenderloin district prostitutes. While her skills have given her a certain level of economic independence – rare for a woman of color – she is painfully lonely. Her life changes however when she falls for a Barbadian laborer who woos her through love letters, and her relationship with a Jewish merchant grows in unforeseen ways. Full of passion and betrayal, playwright Lynn Nottage has stitched together an intimate portrait of a woman shaped by gender, race and class.

Recommended age: 13+ Contains mature themes that may be inappropriate for audiences
under the age of 13.

Show Times:
November 4 - 5, 2011 at 8:00 PM
November 6, 2011 at 2:00 PM
November 9 - 12, 2011 at 8:00 PM
November 13, 2011 at 2:00 PM

Single Ticket Pricing:
Adult Ticket:  $20.00
Senior Ticket (Age 62+):  $18.00
Student Ticket:  $10.00

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Dear Faculty and Educators,

Below are links to information about our production of Intimate Apparel that may help you find connections between your course content and the themes presented in the show. We hope you will find this information useful, and we hope you will encourage your students to attend. A student ticket is only $10. If you require your students to attend you receive two free tickets. For more information, please contact Susan Thomas, sthomas4@fsu.edu, 850.645.1958, or Heather McFarland, hm10d@my.fsu.edu, 850.644.6488.

Keywords:
oral history, ragtime, identity, discrimination, social change, immigrants, great migration, ethnicity, religion, industrialization, race and gender politics, Manhattan, Panama Canal

Dramaturg’s Notes
Set in 1905, Intimate Apparel follows an African American woman who works as a seamstress and negotiates her role in the various relationships that result from her work. The play opens on a moment of social change that profoundly challenged the definition of U.S. American identity: Unprecedented numbers of immigrants were arriving, sparking contentious debates about how (or whether) to incorporate people of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds into the nation’s sense of itself. American citizens, too, were on the move, among them African Americans fleeing violence and poverty in Southern states and seeking better work opportunities in the North in what came to be known as the Great Migration. The possibilities offered to each group because of the industrialization of Northern cities helped create an environment that teemed with promise, anticipation, ambivalence, and heartache…. Read the complete notes below.