Playwright Lynn Nottage Exposes the Racial Dynamic of the Eroding Middle Class

For over 20 years now, master playwright Lynn Nottage has created work that has boldly inserted black women into the American theater conversation. Her numerous honors include a MacArthur “genius” grant and the Pulitzer Prize for Ruined, her play centered on Congolese women surviving their nation’s civil war that earned then-newbie Condola Rashad a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play in 2009. Viola Davis won the Drama Desk for Outstanding Actress in a Play for Nottage’s Intimate Apparel, about a seamstress in 1905 who sews intimate apparel for a wide range of clients.