Nottage's plays have been produced widely in the United States and throughout the world.
Plays Intimate Apparel One of her best-known plays is
Intimate Apparel. In 1905 New York, Esther, a Black seamstress, lives in a boarding house for women, and sews intimate apparel for clients who range from wealthy white patrons to prostitutes. One by one, the other denizens of the boarding house marry and move away, but Esther remains, lonely and longing for a husband and a future. Her plan is to find the right man and use the money she's saved to open a beauty parlor where Black women will be treated as royally as the white women she sews for. Co-commissioned and produced at
Baltimore's
Center Stage, it premiered in February 2003 and
South Coast Repertory. The
Off-Broadway production at
Roundabout Theatre Company opened in 2004, starring
Viola Davis, and receiving critical acclaim. It received the 2004 AUDELCO Viv Award for Playwriting;
AUDELCO (Audience Development Committee) recognizes and honors excellence in Black theatre.
Intimate Apparel has since been commissioned by the MET / Lincoln Center to be adapted into an opera, and will be composed by Ricky Ian Gordon. Since 2004,
Intimate Apparel has become one of the most produced plays in America.
Ruined Ruined dramatizes the plight of
Congolese women surviving
civil war. Set in a small mining town in Democratic Republic of Congo,
Ruined follows Mama Nadi, a shrewd businesswoman protecting and profiting from the women she shelters.The play deals with the role of women in war and the societal stigma around Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). It premiered in 2007 in the
Goodman Theatre (Chicago) New Stages Series, and transferred to Off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club in February 2009.
Ruined was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Ruined also received the 2009 AUDELCO Viv Award for Dramatic Production of the Year. On May 13, 2009, Nottage spoke at a public reception in
Washington, D.C. following a
United States Senate Foreign Relations joint subcommittee hearing entitled "Confronting Rape and Other Forms of Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones," with case studies on the
Democratic Republic of Congo and
Sudan. On October 12, 2009, Nottage spoke at the
United Nations as part of the Exhibit
CONGO/WOMEN Portraits of War: The Democratic Republic of Congo. By the Way, Meet Vera Stark By the Way, Meet Vera Stark is a narrative spanning seventy years, following the life of Vera Stark, a determined African-American maid and aspiring actress, and her complex relationship with her boss, a white Hollywood star struggling to maintain her career. When both women secure roles in the same Southern film, the behind-the-scenes story leaves Vera with a legacy that sparks both surprise and controversy. It premiered Off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre on May 9, 2011, with direction by
Jo Bonney. The play is a "funny and irreverent look at racial stereotypes in Hollywood." The play was nominated for the 2012 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Play. The play ran at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles in September 2012, starring
Sanaa Lathan, who played the role of the maid who becomes a stage star.
Sweat Sweat tells the story of a group of friends who have spent their lives sharing drinks, secrets, and laughs while working together on the factory floor. But when layoffs and picket lines begin to chip away at their trust, the friends find themselves pitted against each other in a heart-wrenching fight to stay afloat. Nottage received a commission from
Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Arena Stage. The play that she wrote as a result,
Sweat, was presented at the festival in
Ashland, Oregon, from July 29, 2015, to October 31, 2015, directed by
Kate Whoriskey. The play takes place in Reading, Pennsylvania, and involves steel workers who have been locked out of their factory workplace. The play was produced at the Arena Stage (Washington, D.C.) from January 15 to February 21, 2016, directed by Whoriskey. Nottage won the 2015–16 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for this play.
Sweat premiered Off-Broadway at the
Public Theater on October 18, 2016 (previews), officially on November 3, again directed by Whoriskey. Here, the play was awarded the 2017
Obie Award for Playwriting. The play closed on December 18, 2016.
Sweat opened on
Broadway at
Studio 54 on March 4, 2017, in previews, officially on March 26. This marks Nottage's Broadway debut.
Sweat was a finalist for the 2016 Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama.
Sweat was again a finalist for the 2017 Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History. The award is administered by Columbia University. The play won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Other plays Her short play
Poof! (
Heideman Award) was presented in 1993 at the Actors Theatre of Louisville during the Humana Festival of New American Plays. It was then broadcast on
PBS in 2002, with a cast that featured
Rosie Perez and
Viola Davis.
Poof! was also recorded for podcast and public radio by Playing on Air, with a cast that featured
Audra McDonald,
Tonya Pinkins, and
Keith Randolph Smith with direction by
Seret Scott. Her political satire ''Por'Knockers'' premiered in 1995 at the
Vineyard Theatre, directed by Michael Rogers, featuring
Sanaa Lathan. The West Coast premiere of her
Crumbs from the Table of Joy, at
South Coast Repertory in September 1996, earned two
NAACP Theatre Awards for performance.
Mud, River, Stone premiered in 1996 at The Acting Company directed by Seret Scott; it premiered in New York in 1997 at
Playwrights Horizons, directed by
Roger Rees. It was a finalist for the
Susan Smith Blackburn Award, and won numerous regional theatre awards.
Las Meninas premiered in 2002 at San Jose Rep, directed by Michael Edwards. It was awarded a Rockefeller Grant, as well as the AT&T OnStage Award. It follows the true story of Queen
Maria Theresa of Spain (wife of
Louis XIV) and her affair with her African servant, Nabo, a dwarf from Dahomey.
Obie Award-winning
Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine (her companion piece to
Intimate Apparel, set one hundred years later), opened Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in June 2004. Her play ''Mlima's Tale
premiered Off-Broadway at The Public Theater on March 27, 2018, in previews, officially on April 15 in a limited engagement to May 20. Direction was by Jo Bonney. The play concerns an elephant, Mlima, "trapped inside the clandestine international ivory market". Sahr Ngaujah plays Mlima. Mlima's Tale'' was nominated for the 2018
Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play, Outstanding Lighting Design (Play or Musical) (Lap Chi Chu) and Outstanding Sound Design (Play or Musical) (Darron L. West). The play was nominated for the 2019
Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Play, Outstanding Director (Bonney), Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play (Sahr Ngaujah), Outstanding Costume Design (Jennifer Moeller) and Outstanding Lighting Design (Lap Chi Chu). Nottage wrote the book for the world premiere musical adaptation of
Sue Monk Kidd's novel
The Secret Life of Bees, with music by
Duncan Sheik and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead. It premiered at the Off-Broadway
Atlantic Theater Company on May 12, 2019. The musical was directed by
Sam Gold and featured
Saycon Sengbloh as Rosaleen, Elizabeth Teeter as Lily,
LaChanze, Eisa Davis and Anastacia McCleskey. The musical had a workshop at the
Vassar Powerhouse Theater, Martel Theatre in July 2017, directed by Sam Gold.
Other work Nottage wrote a monologue,
The Grey Rooster, following a former slave and his slaveholder's cockfighting rooster in post-Civil War Kentucky. It was performed as part of the National Civil War Project's production
Our War, produced in 2014 at
Arena Stage, directed by Anita Maynard-Losh. Nottage contributed to the "dance-theatre musical" written by
Stephen Flaherty and
Lynn Ahrens titled
In Your Arms, which premiered at the
Old Globe Theatre, San Diego, in September 2015. The piece consists of ten vignettes and was directed and choreographed by
Christopher Gattelli. HNottage's vignette is titled
A Wedding Dance and was performed by Marija Juliette Abney and Adesola Osakalumi with The . Nottage wrote the book for a jukebox musical centered on
Michael Jackson and titled
MJ the Musical, originally aiming to premiere on Broadway in 2020; previews were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the musical premiering in February 2022. MJ is currently running on Broadway, London's West End and is touring the United States. It is set to premiere in Sydney and in Hamburg in Spring 2025.
This is Reading Nottage co-conceived
This is Reading, an immersive transmedia project exploring the decline and rebirth of Reading, Pennsylvania: the setting of Nottage's play
Sweat. This site-specific multimedia installation blended live performance and visual media, occupying the Franklin Street Railroad Station in Downtown Reading in May 2017, re-animating the long vacant building. Using as its foundation, the hardships, challenges, and triumphs of people living in and around Reading,
This is Reading weaved individual stories into one cohesive tale of the city. It was produced in association with Market Road Films, the Labyrinth Theater Company, and Project&.
This Is Reading was conceived by Nottage, and co-created by an award-winning team of artists, including filmmaker
Tony Gerber, director Kate Whoriskey and Choreographer Rennie Harris. The creative team included composer Kashaka, projection designer Jeff Sugg, set designer Deb O, costume designer Jennifer Moeller, lighting designer Amith Chandrashaker, sound designer Nick Kourtides, muralist Katie Merz and producers Jane M. Saks, Blake Ashman-Kipervaser, Allison Bressi and Santo D. Marabella.
Market Road Films , November 2011 Nottage is the co-founder of a production company,
Market Road Films, whose most recent projects include
The Notorious Mr. Bout, directed by Tony Gerber and Maxim Pozdorovkin (Premiere/Sundance 2014);
First to Fall, directed by Rachel Beth Anderson (Premiere/ IDFA, 2013); and
Remote Control (Premiere/Busan 2013–New Currents Award). Over the years, Nottage has developed original projects for HBO, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, Showtime, This is That, and
Harpo Productions.
Film and television Nottage was a producer and writer for the first season of ''
She's Gotta Have It''. ==Themes==