Intimate Apparel/Fabulation [Paperback]

“Lynn Nottage’s work explores depths of humanness, the overlapping complexities of race, gender, culture and history—and the startling simplicity of desire—with a clear tenderness, with humor, with compassion.” —Paula Vogel, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright

Intimate Apparel: “Thoughtful, affecting new play . . . with seamless elegance.”—Charles Isherwood,Variety

Fabulation: “Robustly entertaining comedy . . . with punchy social insights and the firecracker snap of unexpected humor.”—Ben Brantley,The New York Times

With her two latest plays, “exceptionally gifted playwright” (New York Observer) Lynn Nottage has created companion pieces that span 100 years in the lives of African American women.Intimate Apparelis about the empowerment of Esther, a proud and shy seamstress in 1905 New York who creates exquisite lingerie for both Fifth Avenue boudoirs and Tenderloin bordellos. InFabulationNottage re-imagines Esther as Undine, the PR-diva of today, who spirals down from her swanky Manhattan office to her roots back in Brooklyn. Through opposite journeys, Esther and Undine achieve the same satisfying end, one of self-discovery.

Lynn Nottage’s plays includeCrumbs from the Table of Joy;Mud, River, Stone;Por’ Knockers;Las Menias;FabulationandIntimate Apparel, for which she was awarded the Francesca Primus Prize and the American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Award in 2004. Her plays have been produced at theatres throughout the country, withIntimate Apparelslated for 16 productions during the 2005–2006 season.