INTIMATE APPAREL Comes to Fells Point Corner Theatre in November

Playwright Lynn Nottage brings untold stories to the stage. This November, FPCT is producing Intimate Apparel, the third Nottage play in its 35-year history, after Ruined and Crumbs from the Table of Joy. 

In the story of Intimate Apparel, in 1905, a young African-American woman, Esther, pursues her dreams of becoming an independent seamstress and opening a beauty parlor for black women in New York City. She sews striking undergarments for clients who range from wealthy white patrons to black prostitutes. By way of a mutual acquaintance, she begins receiving beautiful letters from a lonesome Caribbean man who is working on the Panama Canal. Being illiterate, Esther enlists the help of her patrons to respond to the letters. Gracefully exploring the lost or hidden stories of New York’s early 20th century black population, and drawing on Nottage’s own family history, the play insists that, in a world where even a bolt of wool or silk can come with a story, every person deserves their story too.

Playwright and screenwriter Lynn Nottage is the first and only woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice. In 2004, Intimate Apparel won an American Theatre Critics and New York Drama Critics Circle Awards for best play. Recently, Nottage premiered MJ the Musical, featuring the music of Michael Jackson, on Broadway and an opera adaptation of Intimate Apparel composed by Ricky Ian Gordon and directed by Bart Sher, commissioned by The Met/Lincoln Center Theater. Her other work includes, By The Way, Meet Vera Stark (Lilly Award, Drama Desk Nomination- Second Stage/Signature Theater), Ruined (Pulitzer Prize, OBIE, Lucille Lortel, New York Drama Critics’ Circle, Audelco, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award- MTC/Goodman Theater); Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine (OBIE Award - Playwrights Horizons/Signature Theater); and Crumbs from the Table of Joy. Her play Sweat (Pulitzer Prize, Evening Standard Award, Obie Award, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Tony Nomination, Drama Desk Nomination) premiered on Broadway after a sold-out run at The Public Theater. Visithttps://link.edgepilot.com/s/a135ae6c/rIIDwhnc9UWaT7yTUdCUOw?u=http://www.lynnnottage.com/

FPCT member Belle Burr leads this production. Burr directed Stop Kiss at Vagabond Players as well as three plays in the 2022 10x10x10 festival at FPCT; her last directing gig was Alice In Wonderland for the Overlea ArtsFest. An alumnus of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Belle Burr has studied classical theater, Commedia Dell'arte, Dance and Film. When not directing, Burr combines theater with history to teach children of all backgrounds about the world around them As an actor, she has performed all over the country in various styles of dramatic and comedic theater. Follow her adventures via  @BelleBurr on Instagram, check out her reviews and podcasts at Pop Culture Uncovered and PCU on YouTube, catch her on tour with the American Immersion Theater or join her at a show with the crew of Drop Three Sketch and Improv.

Intimate Apparel runs Friday-Sunday, November 17-December 10th. Tickets are $24. 

For decades, this volunteer, non-profit has presented diverse, challenging, and entertaining theater to the Baltimore through a combination of acclaimed contemporary plays, local Baltimore premieres and time-tested favorites. All are welcome in this inclusive, creative, artistic space that serves as a neighborhood anchor in Upper Fells Point and in the Greater Baltimore cultural community.

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