17³Ô¹Ï

Intimate Apparel

Virtual Performance Readings

Written by Lynn Nottage

Directed by Thomas Times

In coordination with 17³Ô¹Ï’s

Black History Month Celebration

 

Production Dates

February 26–28, 2021 at 7:30 p.m., performed live as a prepared reading each night.

The Story

The time is 1905, the place New York City, where Esther, a black seamstress, whose skills and discretion are much in demand, has managed to stuff a goodly sum of money into her quilt over the years.

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. She begins a beautiful correspondence with a lonesome Caribbean man named George who is working on the Panama Canal. Being illiterate, Esther has one of her patrons respond to the letters, and over time the letters becomes increasingly intimate until George persuades her to marry, sight unseen.

Meanwhile, Esther’s heart seems to lie with the Hasidic shopkeeper from whom she buys cloth, and his heart with her, but the impossibility of the match is obvious to them both, and Esther consents to marry George. When George arrives in New York, however, he turns out not to be the man his letters painted him to be.

Cast

Character	Actor
Narrator/Stage Directions	Kyra Knibbs
Esther	Nique Eagen
Mrs. Dickson	Rebecca Haley Clark
George	Jordan Zion
Mrs. Van Buren	Marcie Rich
Mayme	Deborah Feisa
Mr. Marks	Shir Ben Zeev