Intimate Apparel - The Pasadena Playhouse

Intimate Apparel
By Lynn Nottage
Directed by Sheldon Epps
Education Guide
Table of Contents
Setting, Synopsis, and Cast of Characters............................................................. 2
Intimate Apparel Production History.................................................................. 5
Playwright Lynn Nottage, on Writing Intimate Apparel............................................6
Creative and Design Team................................................................................7
The African-American Experience at the Turn of the 20th Century...............................9
Working African-American Women in Northern Cities..........................................10
Jewish Americans in New York City .................................................................12
Working on the Panama Canal ........................................................................13
Monetary Values in 1905 and Today .................................................................15
Glossary ...................................................................................................16
Supporting Questions and Exercises .................................................................17
Prepared by Dramaturg Elyse A. Griffin
for the Pasadena Playhouse
October 2012
2 Setting, Synopsis, and Cast of Characters
Setting: Manhattan, 1905.
Synopsis: Esther, a middle-aged, black seamstress, has learned to make ends meet by teaching herself to
sew beautiful and delicate lingerie for her uptown and downtown clientele. After nearly two decades of
loneliness and watching the younger and prettier girls come and go in the boarding house she rents from,
Esther finds solace and possible romance in letters from George, a handsome, young Caribbean man
working on the Panama Canal. Re-energized by his affectionate words, but hindered by illiteracy, Esther
confides in two of her patrons, Mrs. Van Buren, a rich white socialite, and Mayme, a prostitute, to pen her
letters back to George. Meanwhile, Esther’s heart also seems to lie with Mr. Marks, the Hasidic shopkeeper
who relishes in sharing his exquisite finds of satins and silks and has also grown increasingly fond of Esther.
Characters in order of Appearance:
Vanessa Williams (“Soul Food,” “Lincoln
Heights,” “Melrose Place”) – Esther
Angel Reda (Dangerous Beauty, Follies, Wicked)—
Mrs. Van Buren
Dawnn Lewis (Dreamgirls, Sister Act-The
Musical, “A Different World”)—Mrs. Dickson
Adam J. Smith (“As the World Turns,” “Bounty
Wars,”) – Mr. Marks
3 Kristy Johnson (Jitney, The Good Negro)—Mayme
David St. Louis (“Third Watch,” Parade, Rent, Ruined) –
George
Questions in Context:
1) Who was your favorite actor? Write a thank you letter to him or her. Let them know why you enjoyed
the performance and why it was nice to be able to come to this specific performance.
2) The actors in this show also act on television and in films. What do you think are the different demands
of acting on stage versus acting for the camera? Do you think there is a difference?
4 Intimate Apparel Production History
Intimate Apparel was first commissioned and produced by
South Coast Repertory and Center Stage in Costa Mesa
California, opening on April 18, 2003. It was directed by
Kate Whoriskey; the set design was by Walt Spangler; the
costume design was by Catherine Zuber; lighting design by
Scott Zielinski; sound design by Lindsay Jones; original music
by Reginald Robinson; arranger and piano coach William
Foster McDaniel; dramaturg Jerry Patch; associate
production dramaturg Rhonda Robbins; production manager
Tom Aberger; production stage manager Randall K. Lum.
Cast:
Esther....................................Shané Williams
Mrs. Dickson...........................Brenda Pressley
Mrs. Van Buren.............................Sue Cremin
Mr. Marks.............................Steven Goldstein
Mayme......................................Erica Gimpel
George.....................................Kevin Jackson
Shané Williams and Erica Gimpel in South Coast
Repertory’s original production of Intimate Apparel.
Intimate Apparel was originally produced in New York City
by the Roundabout Theatre Company, opening on April
8, 2004. It was directed by Daniel Sullivan; the set design
was by Derek McClane; costume design by Catherine
Zuber; lighting design by Allan Lee Hughes; original
music by Harold Wheeler; sound design by Marc Gwinn;
production stage manager Jay Adler; stage manager Amy
Patricia Stern.
Cast:
Esther...........................................Viola Davis
Mrs. Dickson...............................Lynda Gravatt
Mrs. Van Buren.............................Arija Bareikis
Mr. Marks......................................Corey Stoll
Mayme........................................Lauren Velez
George....................................Russell Hornsby
Corey Stoll and Viola Davis in the Broadway production.
5 Playwright Lynn Nottage, on writing Intimate Apparel
Lynn Nottage is the author of Intimate
Apparel, which was produced in New York at
Roundabout Theatre Company after its worldpremiere production at Center Stage and South
Coast Repertory. The play received numerous
awards, including the 2004 New York Drama
Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play.
In an article for the Los Angeles Times, Lynn
Nottage talked about how her own family
history the played a part in the inspiration and
creation of Intimate Apparel.
Excerpted from “Lives Rescued from Silence” by Lynn Nottage, Los Angeles Times, April 13,
2003:
A couple of years ago, I began researching a play about a lonely African American woman searching for
intimacy in New York City during the early 1900s. As a native New Yorker, I'd become intrigued with the social lives of
African American city dwellers in the early 20th century. I knew shockingly little of the city's history and found the
prospect of venturing into new territory a welcome diversion. I spent hours in the New York Public Library, obsessively
exploring the dimly lighted honky-tonks and brothels of the notorious Negro tenderloin district and the cramped,
overpopulated residences of San Juan Hill. I could almost hear the syncopated ragtime piano filling the saloons and
dance halls in the Negro districts. These African American neighborhoods promised a wealth of untapped stories. [...]
Sitting in the main hall of the New York Public Library, I had an epiphany: If my family hadn't preserved our
stories, and history certainly had not, then who would? It led me to revisit the shoe box of neglected photographs beside
my writing desk. It was placed there for a reason. The undisturbed image of my great-grandmother was still nestled on
the top of the pile of forgotten relations; her mute image begged for recognition.
In a rare candid moment, my grandmother once shared that her mother was a Barbadian seamstress who created
intimate apparel for women at the turn of the century. She arrived in New York alone, and soon after began
corresponding with a handsome Barbadian laborer consigned to the Panama Canal. The long-distance exchange led to a
short-lived marriage a year later. [...]
In hunting for a play, I established an intimate dialogue with my great-grandparents. I was finally able to
release them from the shoe box and allow their memory to breathe. I never expected that my family would be the
wonderful byproduct of months of research to craft a play.
Questions in context:
Part of the inspiration to write this play came from playwrights Lynn Nottage’s own life. What else do you
think could inspire someone to write? Think about your favorite stories, movies, or television shows. Do a
little research and see if you can find out where the creator’s original inspiration came from. Was it
something from his or her own life? A loved one’s? Another piece of writing or work of art?
6 The Creative and Design Team of Intimate Apparel
Sheldon Epps – Director
Theatre directors are responsible for creating a vision of a playwright’s script; they lead the cast and crew in
the process from the page to the stage. They direct the actors in the rehearsal process and oversee the other
creative elements of the play.
Hethyr Verhoef – Stage Manager
The stage manager of a production is involved with every part of the production process. He or she
schedules and runs rehearsals, coordinates the stage crew, calls cues and entrances during a performance,
and oversees the whole show each time the play is performed.
John Iacovelli – Scenic Designer
A scenic designer designs the overall look of the set of a play
to reflect the original script and the director’s vision for the
specific production.
Brian Gale – Lighting Designer
Collaborates with the set designer and director to create the
“look” of the play using the lighting.
Steven Cahill – Sound Designer
Designs the “soundscape” of the play, including sound
effects and music required in the script.
Leah Piehl – Costume Designer
Stage Manager Hethyr Verhoef on the rail
backstage. Design the clothes and accessories of each character in the
play to faithfully reflect the script and the director’s vision
of the characters.
Questions in Context:
1) Which creative or design job would you like to do?
2) Write a letter to your favorite design team member. Did you like the lighting design the best? The set?
Let that person know what you liked, ask them how they did it, and what you would have done.
7 3) Advertising is also an important part of a play production. Take a look at the image below, and the image
used in the advertising for Intimate Apparel. What would you think this play is going to be about just based
on this image? How would you design the advertising for this play? What do you think needs to be
communicated through the advertising of a play, so that the audience will want to come see it?
8 The African-American Experience at the Turn of the 20th Century
The following is excerpted from the transcript of an interview with historian Margaret
Washington for the PBS documentary series 1900.
The Feeling of Optimism in America
“An Alley in the Lower West Side of New York—Within two Blocks of Fifth
Avenue”
“1900 appeared to be a time of
optimism, a time of American sense
of assertion, a time of America's
sense of its own power, of its own
people, specifically white people. It
was also a time of transition because
America was still in the Victorian
age, at the same time America was
shedding its Victorianism. It's almost
like America was sort of shaking
itself and emerging into something
new and coming into its own. It was
no longer looking toward a kind of
morality and a kind of sense of what
was right, looking toward Britain,
which is what they had done in terms
of their social system, in terms of
their sense of what was proper and
what was correct. America was
maturing socially, politically and
economically in 1900.
There was a darker side to this sense
of optimism in America in 1900. America was becoming a society of immigrants, people
who were different from the previous immigrants. Many of them were from southern
Europe. That meant that they were darker. Then of course there was the African American
population. So the individuals who were responsible for the labor force were part of this
horde of inferior peoples in American society. So when we think about the optimism, we're
not necessarily including these people who are part of that other half. For them it's not so
much a period of optimism. Although even for the people who are not included in this sense
of optimism, they themselves had a sense of aspiration and a sense of hope.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/1900/filmmore/reference/interview/index.html
9 Working African-American Women in Northern Cities
In Act 1 Scene 2 of Intimate Apparel, Esther says to Mayme that she has been saving her
money since she came North to work in New York. Esther’s journey North was common of
many African American women at the turn of the century.
From Women and the American
Experience by Nancy Woloch
If the black woman worker had one
thing in common with the white wageearning woman, it was the growing
likelihood that she lived in or moved to a
city. Most black migrants moved to
southern cities. But even before the massive
black urban migrations of the World War I
era, indeed, before the nineteenth century
was out, the lure of jobs drew southern
black women to northern cities in greater
numbers than black men. Whereas among
immigrant groups, who were settling in
northern cities, men were always in a
majority, women predominated among
black urban migrants. In New York in 1890,
for instance, there were 81 black men for
every 100 black women. ...Black women
dominated the ranks of early urban migrants because they were always able to get jobs, as
men could not, in the growing market for domestics—as cooks, laundresses, scrubwomen,
and maids.
From The African-American Migration Experience: The Northern Migration
The rampant discrimination against black men in the Northern labor markets made it
unlikely that a family could be supported on one salary. The domestic work open to AfricanAmerican women was often steady, unlike the seasonal nature of many of the laboring jobs
available to men. One attractive feature of domestic work in the homes of others, or of
"taking in" washing or sewing at one's own home, was that such an arrangement allowed for
the care of children at the workplace. Black women were often very influential within the
household.
10 The story of Chloe Spear provides an interesting account of one African-American
"Wonder Woman." Born in Africa and enslaved in Boston until the end of the eighteenth
century, Chloe married Cesar Spear, also a slave. After the family was freed, the Spears
operated a boardinghouse in the city. In addition, Chloe did domestic work for a prominent
family. While she was at work, Cesar saw to the cooking and other duties associated with
the boardinghouse but when she returned in the evening he turned the operation over to her
while he was "taking his rest." After
working all day, Chloe cooked dinner
for her family and for the boarders and
cleaned the house. In order to make
extra money, she took in washing,
which she did at night, setting up lines in
her room for drying the clothes. She
slept a few hours while the clothes
dried, then ironed them and prepared
breakfast for the household before going
off to work for the day.
Although one might easily
conclude that women like Chloe were
cruelly exploited by their husbands, the
reality was not quite so simple. Chloe
did not routinely hand over her wages to
her husband, as did most white working
women of the period. She controlled her
own money, as is usual among African
women. At one point she decided to
purchase a house despite the fact that the law prohibited married women from buying
property in their own name. Chloe was forced to ask her husband to make the purchase for
her. Told that it cost $700, Cesar determined that he could not afford it. "I got money,"
Chloe announced, and Cesar agreed to sign for the house.
Studies of the black family have long noted the increased independence and authority
women exercised within the household because of their crucial role in the family economy.
Chloe is an excellent example of the way African-American women asserted that role.
Images from album: “Types of American Negroes,” compiled and prepared by W.E.B. Du Bois, c.
1900.
11 Jewish Americans in New York City
From “The American Jewish Experience in the 20th Century: Assimilation and Antisemitism”
by Jonathan D. Sarna and Jonathan Golden
The twentieth century witnessed the
emergence of American Jewry on the world Jewish
scene. As the century opened, the United States,
with about one million Jews, was the third largest
Jewish population center in the world, following
Russia and Austria-Hungary. About half of the
country's Jews lived in New York City alone,
making it the world's most populous Jewish
community by far, more than twice as large as its
nearest rival, Warsaw, Poland. By contrast, just
half a century earlier, the United States had been
home to barely 50,000 Jews and New York's
Praying on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, early 1900s. Jewish population had stood at about 16,000.
Immigration provided the principal fuel behind this
extraordinary American Jewish population boom. In 1900, more than 40 percent of America's Jews
were newcomers, with ten years or less in the country, and the largest immigration wave still lay
ahead. Between 1900 and 1924, another 1.75 million Jews would immigrate to America's shores,
the bulk from Eastern Europe. Where before 1900, American Jews never amounted even to 1
percent of America's total population, by 1930 Jews formed about 3½ percent. There were more
Jews in America by then than there were Episcopalians or Presbyterians.
This massive population transfer radically transformed the character of the American Jewish
community.
It reshaped its composition and
geographical distribution, resulting in a
heavy concentration of Jews in East Coast
cities, including some (like Boston) where
Jews had never lived in great numbers
before. It also realigned American Jewry's
politics and priorities, injecting new
elements of tradition, nationalism, and
socialism into Jewish communal life, and
seasoning its culture with liberal dashes of
East European Jewish folkways. Although
the American Jewish community retained
significant elements from its German and
Sephardic pasts (Sephardic Jews having
Jewish neighborhood in New York city, early 1900s. originated in Spain and Portugal), the
traditions of East European Jews and their
descendants dominated the community. With their numbers and through their achievements, they
raised its status both nationally and internationally.
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/jewishexp.htm
12 Working on the Panama Canal
The following is excerpted from the article, “The Workers” on the companion website
to the American Experience television documentary series Panama Canal.
"You here who are doing your work well in
bringing to completion this great enterprise are
standing exactly as a soldier of the few great wars
of the world's history," Teddy Roosevelt
announced to workers during his trip to Panama
in 1906. "This is one of the great works of the
world." In December of that year, two years into
the project, there were already more than 24,000
men working on the Panama Canal. Within five
years, the number had swelled to 45,000. These
workers were not all from the United States, but
from Panama, the West Indies, Europe, and Asia.
The base of the workforce, however, once again
came from the West Indies. After experiencing
Teddy Roosevelt with Canal workers
the empty promises of the French in the 1880s,
most Jamaican workers were unwilling to try
their luck on the American canal project, and so in 1905 recruiters turned their attention to
the island of Barbados. West Indian labor was cheaper than American or European labor,
and a West Indian worker was eager to believe a rags-to-riches tale spun by a recruiter. The
"Colón Man" was reborn as representatives from Panama boasted of a rewarding work
contract, including free passage to Panama and a repatriation option after 500 working days.
By the end of the year, 20 percent of the 17,000 canal workers were Barbadian.
West Indians recruited with promises of wealth and success confronted a very different
reality upon arrival at the Isthmus. The dense and untamed jungle that covered the 50 miles
between coasts was
filled with deadly
snakes. The venom
of the coral snake
attacked the
nervous system,
and a bite from the
tenfoot mapana snake
caused internal
bleeding and organ
13 degeneration. The rainy season, which lasted from May to November, kept workers
perpetually wet and coated in mud.
[...] The living conditions exacerbated the poor hygiene in the area, and newcomers quickly
learned about the serious threat of disease on what was dubbed "Fever Coast." Smallpox,
pneumonia, typhoid, dysentery, hookworm, cutaneous infections, and even the bubonic
plague infected workers throughout the American excavation period, but yellow fever was
the most treacherous ailment, both physically and mentally. [...]
As work on the canal entered its second year, the death toll for laborers was four percent
and 22,000 were hospitalized. Every evening, a train traveled to Mount Hope Cemetery by
the city of Colón, its cars brimming with coffins, forcing the men to confront the great odds
against their survival.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/panama-workers/
14 Monetary Values in 1905 and Today
From MeasuringWorth.com:
In 2011*, the relative value of $1.00 from 1905 ranges from $20.40 to $524.00.
A simple Purchasing Power Calculator would say the relative value is $26.40. This answer is
obtained by multiplying $1 by the percentage increase in the CPI from 1905 to 2011.
If you want to compare the value of a $1.00 Income or Wealth, in 1905 there are three
choices. In 2011 the relative:
historic standard of living value of that income or wealth is $26.40
economic status value of that income or wealth is $141.00
economic power value of that income or wealth is $524.00
The CPI (Consumer Price Index) is most often used to make comparisons partly
because it is the series with which people are most familiar. This series tries to compare the
cost of things the average household buys such as food, housing, transportation, medical
services, etc. For earlier years, it is the most useful series for comparing the cost of
consumer goods and services. It can be interpreted as how much money you would need
today to buy an item in the year in question if its price had changed the same percentage as
the average price change.
Examples:
In 1968, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the US was 34 cents. Compared to
other things that the average consumer bought that year, this would be comparable to
$2.10 using the CPI index for 2009. As to how "affordable" it is to the average person, 34
cents in 1968 would correspond to spending $3.48 out of an average income by using the
GDP per capita index.
In 1931, an accountant in the US would be earning about $2,250, an amount that would
represent a comparative purchasing power of $31,700 in current dollars. However, this
salary is almost 45% more than what the average household spent in those days. This
would correspond to $168,000 today, a "status" of nearly twice the national average.
*We use annual data for our computations, therefore, it is necessary to have an annual observation for both the initial year and
the desired year. For the indices based on GDP, it is only after the year is over that GDP can be measured. For price indices, the
annual observations are usually the average of monthly observations. It would not be valid to compare a monthly observation in
the current year with an annual observation in an earlier year.
15 Glossary
Accoutrements: an accessory item of clothing or equipment.
Busylickum: (slang) A nosy person, a
busybody.
Chattel: an item of tangible movable or
immovable property except real estate
and things (as buildings) connected with
real property; a slave, bondman.
Duppy: (slang) Duppies are restless
spirits of the dead that are believed to
haunt the living. Contrary to the good
spirit, the duppy is seen as the unnamed,
unhappy, and restless dead human who is
capable of doing harm.
A flamboyant tree.
Flamboyant (noun): A species of flowering plant (Delonix regia). It is noted for its fern-like leaves and
flamboyant display of flowers. The tree's vivid vermilion/orange/yellow flowers and bright green foliage
make it an exceptionally striking sight.
Ignorant oil: (slang) alcohol, especially cheap and potent alcohol
Monkey chaser: (slang) a West Indian
Mulatto: a person of mixed white and black ancestry
Suffragettes: Women in Britain, Australia and the United States in
the early 20th century who was a member of a group that demanded
the right of women to vote and that increased knowledge of the
subject with a series of public protests
The Tenderloin: The Tenderloin was the premier sex-work district
in New York City in the early 1900s. It was vast, reaching from
A Suffragette.
Gramercy Park and Murray Hill on the east and working-class Hell’s
Kitchen on the west, north from Twenty-third Street Between Fifth
and Eighth Avenues. Through the second half of the 19th century, the Tenderloin grew from having been an
elite, wealthy, white neighborhood to a center of commerce and entertainment. Hotels, theatres, and
restaurants brought with them an upsurge of nightlife, which attracted prostitutes to the area. Wealthy
residents of the area began moving uptown to escape the changing conditions of the Tenderloin area, and as
a result landlords rented to houses of prostitution because they were able to afford higher rent than
working-class tenants. It is most likely that the character of Mayme lives and works in the edge of the
Tenderloin district between W 36th and to 41st Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, where the
majority of black prostitution was relegated.
16 Supporting Questions and Exercises
1. Who was your favorite character? Did you agree with how he or she handled him or herself? Put yourself
in their shoes. How would you act in similar situations to the ones they are in?
2. Does the setting of the play matter? How would this play be different if it were set in another country?
Another part of the U.S.? Another time era? How would the relationships change?
3. Each character has a dream or a desire, and something that stands in the way of it. What are they? How
are they different and similar for each character?
4. In what ways are the characters connected to each other (circumstances, desires, loves, etc.)?
5. Did any of the characters change over the course of the play? In what way?
6. Whose story is this: Esther? Mayme? Another character? Several?
7. How do each character’s actions and words affect the others?
8. Was this a story with a happy ending for anyone? Why or why not? What do you think will happen to
these characters after the play’s ending point?
9. If you could rewrite the story, would you? Would you make it happier, sadder, etc.? Would you add
other characters?
10. How would you describe this play to a friend? What would be the 3 most important things you think
you should mention?
11. What do you think are the themes of this play?
12. What do you think the title Intimate Apparel means?
13. If this play were a kind of fabric, what would it be?
17 References
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28787253/Vice-Slang
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/accoutrement
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/suffragette
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/flamboyant-tree.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delonix_regia
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chattel
http://books.google.com/books?id=4YfsEgHLjboC&pg=PA315&lpg=PA315&dq=busylickum&source=bl&ots=7J
TCPai058&sig=IiucBrKMQVcIMCcFVlXcUbhaYE8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RzeUUJWfN8PXyAH1iYCgCQ&sqi=2&v
ed=0CDIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=busylickum&f=false
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/worsted
http://aalbc.com/authors/harlemslang.htm
http://www.go-localjamaica.com/readarticle.php?ArticleID=6446
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mulatto
Blair, Cynthia M. I Got to Make My Livin’: a study of black women’s sex work.
Gilfoyle, Timothy J. City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex 1790-1920. By
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