Lynn Nottage's Intimate Apparel Opera to Debut Off-Broadway with Lincoln Center Theater

Lincoln Center Theater has announced the world premiere opera Intimate Apparel, based on the award-winning play by two-time Pulitzer winner Lynn Nottage. Tony winner Bartlett Sher (To Kill a Mockingbird) will direct the production, slated to begin previews on February 27, 2020 and open on March 23 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.

Featuring a book by Nottage and music by Ricky Ian Gordon (My Life with Albertine), Intimate Apparel tells the story of Esther, a lonely, single African-American woman in 1905 New York City who makes her living sewing beautiful corsets and ladies' undergarments. Seeking love and romance, Esther embarks on a letter-writing relationship with a mysterious suitor laboring on the Panama Canal and realizes that only her self-reliance and certainty of her own worth will see her through life's challenges.

The play Intimate Apparel premiered off-Broadway in 2004, in a production starring Viola Davis as Esther, and won that year's New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play as well as the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Play.

Nottage, a two-time Pulitzer winner for her plays Ruined and Sweat, is the book writer of the currently running off-Broadway musical The Secret Life of Bees and Broadway's upcoming Michael Jackson musical Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough.

Casting and design team for the Intimate Apparel opera will be announced at a later date. The production will play a limited engagement through May 3, 2020.