<\/p>\n
Lynn Nottage\u2019s Pulitzer Prize-winning play \u201cSweat\u201d takes place in a bar in the blue-collar area of Reading, Pa.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And Wichita Repertory Theatre artistic director Julie Longhofer wanted to get as authentic as possible.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe built a box set for this little bar, and we\u2019ve been partnering with some local people to equip it like a bar,\u201d she said of the play, which opens next week at Oliver Place, a former church. \u201cIn the play, they drink a lot of beer. And our actors will be drinking from a real keg of non-alcoholic beer, which (is) actually is kind of fun. We tested the beer the other night and it was funny, because all of the actors were partying and talking and laughing, and someone said, \u201cis there any alcohol in this beer?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nottage, Longhofer said, intentionally made the setting a rundown watering hole.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople often tend to speak the truth in bars,\u201d Longhofer said. \u201cThere\u2019s just a natural lubricant there of people and alcohol and speaking the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cSweat\u201d is an ensemble piece that checks in with its 10 characters over 15 scenes, most of them in the year 2000 \u2013 what Nottage called the \u201cde-industrial revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThings changed so much in the Rust Belt. People whose families had worked to build things for three generations suddenly weren\u2019t needed anymore, and a lot of jobs went overseas,\u201d Longhofer said. \u201cThere was kind of a ripple effect of changes for families, and so the play is very much about working-class protagonists of many different races, different backgrounds, but they\u2019re connected by this.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Longhofer said she liked the storytelling aspect of checking in for a month at a time over a year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone who\u2019s ever been through that moment when you wake up and you say, \u2018How did we get here?\u2019 You know, when did all of this start? When did my life start changing?\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of what the play is about, and specifically for these working-class protagonists who are just brilliantly human and very, very interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cSweat,\u201d Longhofer said, has been called a \u201cstudy in empathy.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI found it so educational to just kind of watch these people\u2019s lives, and the things that frustrated them, and the things they had to overcome. And it really opened a window on a way of life that I don\u2019t think I understood very well,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know how some plays can be didactic and preach at you — this isn\u2019t one of those plays.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, it just shows you that you don\u2019t understand another person\u2019s choices until you walk a whole mile in their shoes, and it lets you do that,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, it\u2019s got a tremendous amount of vibrant life in it, with a lot of heartfelt joy and comedy, but ultimately, it\u2019s a drama which has a really big impact at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For actress Kate Compton, it\u2019s the second time for her to play Tracey, one of the factory workers, after playing the same part while a graduate student at Northwestern University.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so different than what I did the last time,\u201d said Compton, who began last fall as an assistant professor of performing arts at Wichita State. \u201cI\u2019m really enjoying the newfound discoveries that I\u2019m finding a second time around in this very complicated character.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Actress Jene\u00e9 Jenkins Saffold, in contrast, had not heard of the play until Longhofer handed her the script and told her to consider the character of Cynthia, another factory worker and a close friend of Compton\u2019s Tracey.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI was blown away,\u201d said Saffold, a Wichita attorney. \u201cI thought it was a really powerful show, and I was like, this would be really cool to see this done in Wichita.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Compton said she hopes the audience drinks in the message of a play set in a bar.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I hope people leave the show with is a deeper understanding of how complicated our world is, how connected we are, and how every choice you make is connected to somebody else. It has power \u2014 and that they\u2019re not always two sides to every issue. There are in this play, 10 sides to this issue that they\u2019re looking at, right?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cJust to have that deeper understanding that we are all living in a complicated mess of a world, and we all affect each other, and to have a little more compassion for each other,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When:<\/b> March 27 to April 5; 7:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Where:<\/b> Oliver Place, 2512 N. Oliver<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tickets:<\/b> $35, with discounts for seniors, veterans, students and those under age 30, from https:\/\/ictrep.org\/sweat2026.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.kansas.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lynn Nottage\u2019s Pulitzer Prize-winning play \u201cSweat\u201d takes place in a bar in the blue-collar area of Reading, Pa. And Wichita Repertory Theatre artistic director Julie Longhofer wanted to get as authentic as possible. \u201cWe built a box set for this little bar, and we\u2019ve been partnering with some local people to equip it like a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2338294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[452967,452966,452965,452964],"class_list":["post-2338293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-lynn-nottage-wichita","tag-oliver-place-performances","tag-sweat-play-wichita","tag-wichita-repertory-theatre"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Wichita-Rep-stages-Lynn-Nottages-Sweat-at-Oliver-Place.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2338293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2338295,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338293\/revisions\/2338295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2338294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2338293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2338293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2338293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}