Westport Country Playhouse Presents Script in Hand Reading of INTIMATE APPAREL Tonight

Westport Country Playhouse's next Script in Hand playreading will be the award-winning play "Intimate Apparel" by Lynn Nottage, set for one-night-only tonight, February 11, 7 p.m. All tickets are $15. The cast includes Geneva Carr, Lynda Gravátt, Donnetta Lavinia Grays, Billy EuGene Jones, Paul Anthony Stewart, and Susan Kelechi Watson. Director is Anne Keefe, Playhouse artistic advisor.

"I'm thrilled to be able to bring Lynn Nottage's work to The Playhouse stage," said Keefe. "This is a play that has intrigued me for almost a decade, and I'm happy to be able to share it with our audience. It's a beautiful love story!"

"Intimate Apparel" takes place in New York City, 1905. Esther, a black seamstress, sews intimate apparel for rich white women and well-paid black prostitutes. Lonely and longing for a husband and a future, she begins corresponding with George, a Caribbean man working on the Panama Canal, who persuades her to marry him, sight unseen. Meanwhile, Esther's heart lies with the Hasidic shopkeeper, Mr. Marks, from whom she buys cloth, but the impossibility of the match is obvious to them both. "Intimate Apparel" won the 2004 New York Drama Critics' Circle and Outer Critics Circle awards.

Geneva Carr, who will play Mrs. Van Buren, appeared at Westport Country Playhouse in "How the Other Half Loves," "Time of My Life," "Relatively Speaking," and several Script in Hand playreadings. Lynda Gravátt will portray Mrs. Dickson, a role she originated in the off-Broadway production. She was seen last fall at Westport Country Playhouse in "A Raisin in the Sun," and appeared on Broadway in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Doubt."

Donnetta Lavinia Grays (Esther) performed at Westport Country Playhouse in "Twelfth Night," and was in Broadway's "In the Next Room or the vibrator play," and "Well." Billy EuGene Jones (George) appeared at Westport Country Playhouse in "A Raisin in the Sun" last season, and on Broadway in "Passing Strange," "Radio Golf," "Gem of the Ocean, and "A Raisin in the Sun."

Paul Anthony Stewart (Mr. Marks) was at Westport Country Playhouse last season in the world premiere of "Harbor," and the previous season in "Twelfth Night." He earned an Emmy Award nomination for his role as Danny Santos on "Guiding Light." Susan Kelechi Watson (Mayme) was in Westport Country Playhouse productions of "A Raisin in the Sun" and "Twelfth Night," and appeared on Broadway in "A Naked Girl on the Appian Way."

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