The 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

The 2017 Obie Award for Playwriting

The 2017 Tony Award Nomination for Best Play

The 2019 Evening Standard Play of the Year Award

Pulitzer Prize Winner SWEAT by Lynn Nottage

Widely celebrated as a playwright of keen intellect, Lynn Nottage sheds light on often overlooked corners of society, and conveys the voices of the marginalized. This year, the National Theater Company of Korea stages her work SWEAT for the first time in Korea. The play moves back and forth between the past and the present with a dramatic subtlety that maximizes the impact of the stark realty facing factory workers—who are easily replaced. This masterpiece earned Nottage her second Pulitzer Prize.

As the scenes unfold in a small bar on the other side of the globe, the fear caused by the unforeseen collapse of everyday life—combined with the workers’ frustration and unstable times—expands the story into the most realistic thriller. However, even as everything gets shattered and scattered, we must hold on to a tiny sign of hope for what may come next.

**Synopsis

“You’re fired.”

Cynthia is promoted to supervisor after silently enduring racial and gender discrimination as well as all sorts of humiliation. Her sense of accomplishment is short-lived however, as it is left to Cynthia to deliver layoff notices to her colleagues when the company decides to reduce expenses. They used to comfort each other over after-work drinks, but now Cynthia’s friends condemn her from behind the picket line. She must prove that her choice is not an act of betrayal: “Remember, one of us has to be left standing to fight.”

Written by Lynn Nottage

Named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2019, playwright Lynn Nottage has created powerful drama that examines various social issues. In 2017, she was awarded her second Pulitzer Prize for Sweat , following her 2009 play Ruined, which told the history of cruel abuse inflicted on women in Congo.

Directed by Ahn Kyungmo

Director Ahn Kyungmo offers delicate and sharp analyses of human nature and psychology, and creates deep dramatic sensibility on stage. His major works include Winds Shaking the Stars, a calm, consoling play about the lives of ordinary people in modern society; And Another Day, the winner of Grand Prize at the 2012 Seoul Theater Festival that questions underlying hope in life; and Haemoo, which took the theater world by storm and was selected by The Korean Theatre Review as one of the 7 Best Productions of 2007.