“Feisty comedy is on the menu” (Washington Post) in two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage’s latest Broadway triumph.

Creating the perfect sandwich is the shared quest of the formerly incarcerated kitchen staff of Clyde’s, a truck stop cafe. Even as the shop’s mischievous owner tries to keep them under her thumb, the staffers are given purpose and permission to dream—finding that “sometimes a hero is more than a sandwich” (New York Times). This stirring, masterful play from the team of two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage and director Kate Whoriskey (Ruined, Sweat) makes its Chicago premiere.

 

• Lynn Nottage, Playwright

  Lynn Nottage is a playwright and a screenwriter, and the first woman in history to win two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. Her plays have been produced widely in the United States and throughout the world. Chicago credits include Ruined (Goodman Theatre); Sweat (Goodman Theatre); By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (Goodman Theatre); Crumbs from the Table of Joy (Goodman Theatre; Steppenwolf) and Intimate Apparel (Steppenwolf). Broadway credits include her plays Clyde’s (2ST) and Sweat, and the libretto for the musical MJ. Other work includes the libretto for the opera Intimate Apparel (Lincoln Center Theater); co-curating the performance installation The Watering Hole (Signature Theater); the libretto for the musical adaptation of The Secret Life of Bees; as well as her plays Mlima's Tale; Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine; Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Las Meninas; Mud, River, Stone; Por’knockers and POOF!. She has also developed This is Reading, a performance installation in Reading, Pennsylvania. Ms. Nottage is the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship, among other awards, is an associate professor at Columbia University School of the Arts and is a member of the Dramatists Guild.

  

• Kate Whoriskey, Director

  Ms. Whoriskey’s most recently collaborated with the Goodman on Ruined during the 2008/2009 Season. Her Goodman credits include Vigils, Heartbreak House, The Rose Tattoo and Drowning Crow. Her off-Broadway credits include The Piano Teacher by Julia Cho at the Vineyard Theatre, Last Tree in Antarctica by Julia Cho at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, the world premiere of Fabulation or The Re-Education of Undine by Lynn Nottage at Playwrights Horizons and Massacre (sing to your children) by José Rivera at the LAByrinth Theater Company, of which she is a member. She also directed The Tempest at Shakespeare Theatre; the world premiere of Intimate Apparel, The Piano Teacher, Life is a Dream, Caucasian Chalk Circle, Antigone and The Clean House at South Coast Repertory; Master Builder at the American Repertory Theatre; and Blue/Orange, Lady from the Sea and The Chairs at the Intiman Theatre. She has worked with writers Nilo Cruz, Sarah Ruhl, Michael Ondaatje, Regina Taylor and Said Sayrafiezadeh. Ms. Whoriskey has also directed at Theatre for a New Audience, Baltimore Center Stage, Perseverance Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Sundance Theatre Lab, The Fisher Center, The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and Geva Theatre. A graduate of New York University and the ART Institute at Harvard, she is currently a visiting lecturer at Princeton University and an associate artist at South Coast Repertory.