Playwright Lynn Nottage has been honored with the Pulitzer Prize for “Sweat,” her play about dissatisfaction, anger, and resentment among the working class. To make the occasion even more exciting, Nottage is actually the first woman to ever win a Pulitzer for Drama twice. The significance of these two wins is not lost on the “Ruined” writer: “Winning the second Pulitzer firmly places me in conversation with this culture,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “№1, I’m representing for women, and №2, I’m representing for playwrights of color.”
According to the Times, “Sweat” was inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Looking for a location that encapsulated the struggles of the 99 percent, Nottage traveled to “Reading, Pa., a manufacturing town that has suffered from the effects of globalization, and ‘Sweat’ was born out of Nottage’s intensive interviews with residents.”
The Pulitzer jury commended the play as “a nuanced yet powerful drama that reminds audiences of the stacked deck still facing workers searching for the American dream.”
The play also taps into the widespread discontent that won Trump the 2016 election. “Even though [‘Sweat’ is] happening in 2000, it’s still very much about America today,” Nottage explained. “I don’t think any of us could predict Trump. Trump is the stuff of nightmares, but in talking to people, I knew there was a tremendous level of disaffection and anger and sorrow. I know people felt misrepresented and voiceless.”
Nottage won her first Pulitzer in 2009 for “Ruined,” which focuses on “ruined” women — rape survivors and sex workers — in civil war-torn Congo. Her other plays include “Crumbs from the Table of Joy,” “Fabulation,” “Intimate Apparel,” and “By the Way, Meet Vera Stark.” “Sweat” marked Nottage’s Broadway debut and won the Blackburn Prize in 2016.