Patrick Oliver Jones:

Acting is a job. The hours of work that go into auditions, rehearsals, performances. Sometimes we're paid for that work and sometimes not. It is a hustle to maintain a steady income from stage work, whether you're an actor, writer, director. But oftentimes our paychecks come from survival jobs or temp work instead. And today's guest knows a thing or two about survival jobs and the work it takes to be a theater artist.

Lynn Nottage:

Hi, I'm Lynn Nottage. I'm a playwright from Brooklyn and I live in the home that I grew up in. So I've made a complete full circle.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

As a playwright, Lynn has crafted fascinating stories and emotionally rich characters. She is a true artist with the credentials to back it up. She's won two Pulitzer Prizes for drama, as well as numerous Off Broadway awards, not to mention three Tony Award nominations. And she joins me for the first episode of season nine to talk about her art and the moment when she realized she was born to write, regardless of whether or not she could actually make a living as a writer. It's a moment that happens in every artist's life when the calling outweighs the worries or doubts, when the desire to create is stronger than the fear of failure.

Now, my conversation with Lynn Nottage is one of the most anticipated interviews I have ever had on this podcast. And if I'm being honest, one of the most nerve wracking as well. I mean, who am I to be talking to someone of her status and position? But what happened instead was a thoughtful and effortless discussion about theater and how it has changed our lives and those around us.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Welcome, Lynn. It is such an honor and such a pleasure to meet you and have you on the podcast today. Thank you for coming.

Lynn Nottage:

Thank you for the invitation.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, one of one of my favorite things about when people start off in the theater, you know, obviously it's as a they see some stage production. But for you, you mentioned a puppet show called Succotash on Ice. Tell us about this show and why it sticks out to you.

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah, I remember Succotash on Ice because it was one of the first experiences I ever had in the theater. My mother took me to see the puppet show at Long Island University and I still remember the moment when the curtain went up and then the refrigerator opened and there were puppets of corn and lima beans and they began to talk and I was like, oh my God. I mean, it was just this incredible, magical moment that I couldn't completely comprehend, but that utterly delighted me. And from then I think that I was just Won over by the magic of theater. I thought, this is what I want to do. I want to make lima beans and corn talk.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I love it. Did you go into acting first? Was that one of your first forays on stage?

Lynn Nottage:

You know, it's interesting. I've always been drawn to writing for the theater, crafting plays. It began in my parents living room where I'd write plays for my brother and myself to perform when they had guests. And I certainly dabbled in acting, but I wouldn't say that I was ever really drawn to it. I think that I preferred to be behind scenes. It's like I'm an introvert, extrovert, and I love the solitary time sort of wrestling with questions and ideas and then being in collaboration with people. But I never had that desire to be on stage. I never really wanted to be seen in that way.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I see, I see. Well, this kind of gets us into your first story and we'll go back to 1993. And this was when you were making your transition from a stressful full time work at Amnesty International and you were embracing your life as an artist. Now you had graduated from Brown University, gotten your MFA from Yale, and around that same year you also produced your first play in New York, which I believe was Rhinestones and paste in 1980.

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah, that's definitely true. It's like I went directly from Brown undergraduate into graduate school, and I was on the young side. And so I arrived in Yale University at a very fraught moment. I mean, it was the height of the AIDS epidemic and the crack epidemic, and you could really feel that impact on the community outside of Yale, but also very much on the community inside Yale. And so my years at the drama school were quite fraught and difficult and filled with a kind of sadness that is external to just like the wear and tear of being a student. It was really difficult to have teachers die and to have fellow students die of AIDS when you're just 20 years old. And so when I finished graduate school, I felt like I really needed to pause from theater and I felt like I needed to do something that had more impact and that would directly address sort of human woes and what was happening in the world. And I went to work for Amnesty International, where I worked as the press officer for about.

Lynn Nottage:

For four years. And that was immensely intense work and had another kind of wear and tear on the mind and body. And for that period of time, I really pushed aside writing for the theater. And I sold my computer, if you could call it a computer back then. It was More like a word processor. And I committed to this life as, like, a human rights warrior. But then, you know, there came a moment when I was working at Amnesty when I felt like there are ways in which I wanted to be in dialogue with people that I couldn't do as a press officer, you know, through, you know, three or four paragraphs of describing what's happening in the world, is that I wanted to really be much more in conversation with people and explain what I was feeling, explaining what I was experiencing at Amnesty International. And I decided to write again.

Lynn Nottage:

And it really came at a moment when I had encountered these pictures that a photographer named Donna Ferrato had brought in for us to look at. And she had taken these images of women just as they were arriving at a battered women's shelter. And they were filled with so much emotion. I mean, there was relief, there was grief, there was anger. There's just, you know, within these images, there's the kind of tension that as an artist, you really struggle to capture. And Donna asked whether there was anything we could do at MSD International with the images. And at the time, unfortunately, we were really struggling with how to deal with gender specific human rights abuses, and it wasn't within our mandate. And that was immensely frustrating to me.

Lynn Nottage:

And so after she left, I closed my door, and for the first time in four years, I wrote a play. I thought, oh, this is what I do. And I wrote a play called Poof, which is about a woman who's abused, and she tells her husband to go to hell, and he explodes. And then she has to deal with what to do now because he's been reduced to a pile of ash. And she calls her best friend down, and they have this discussion, and finally they decide to sweep him under the rug. And so it was this very funny short piece, but it captured all the things that I had experienced upon seeing Donna Ferrato's images. And I put that back into the world. And that was really sort of my transition back into theater.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Did it feel natural? Did it just come out of you onto the page, that writing?

Lynn Nottage:

I think, yeah, it just came out. You know, it felt like I need to respond in some way and what are the tools that I have to respond? And I thought, it's writing. It's like I've been trained to do this. This is something I love. This is something that I have sort of locked away in order to exercise different muscles. And I realized, oh, those muscles are still there, and I can still use them when necessary.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

How did you go about Continuing to kind of draft and rewrite. Poof. Because you did eventually produce it, I think, just a few years ago.

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah, you know, I sent off, you know, it's, you know, it's funny how things happen is I remember getting a flyer from like the Actors Theater of Louisville about their 10 minute play competition. And I had looked at it and looked at it and looked at it and finally I thought, oh, I have a 10 minute play. And I sent it in and I won the competition with that particular play. And then it drew me out to the Actors Theatre of Louisville, which ended up being my very first professional production, even though it was 10 minutes. And it was directed by the wonderful Surrette Scott. And we really revised it in the moment, in rehearsal.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And as you transitioned into more full length plays, was it, was it kind of difficult, kind of getting back on the bike again, so to speak, and riding these full length plays?

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's. It, it was, it was different difficult, but it was also really quite a wonderful sensation to recommit to, to, to writing. You know, the difficulty is really trying to figure out how you're going to survive when you're writing. The writing itself wasn't hard. It's everything around the writing. Once I quit my job, that became really quite complicated.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Did it feel like it was going to actually produce a living for you? Produce paycheck?

Lynn Nottage:

It's interesting. And we live in such different times than we do now, where there's so many ways to monetize and that as a young writer, you could write for television, you can write for, for podcasts, you can write for video games. And like when I was coming into the world, there weren't those options, particularly if you were a black woman. And so I wasn't really thinking about making a living as a playwright. What I was thinking about is how can I be an artist in this world and survive? And so that's what I was doing for those years. It was like I was surviving and making my art. And I realized that in order to feel complete that I had to do both of those things. You know, had tried the job, which, yes, it was immensely fulfilling, but was the survival job.

Lynn Nottage:

And I realized that there was a part of me that was unfulfilled, that was incomplete. And so I thought I'd rather be struggling but also writing than just working and not writing.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Now for us actors, we go from job to job and it's dependent upon playwrights like yourself, producers, theater companies, putting up these shows, shows, casting us in them. And so for us, it's all about the audition process and keep going, keep going until you book shows and hopefully you have work over the year for you. You're a bit more in control because you write your own stuff. Do you feel more empowered, more in control of your career? In some ways, yeah.

Lynn Nottage:

I mean, it's really the question of agency, Right. As a playwright, yes, I can control what I write, but I can't control when and how it gets produced. And so there's that moment that it gets into the release in the world in which I live in that same kind of sphere of. In uncertainty, you know. And as a playwright, you know, I'm really used to the same kind of precarity that actors have, because once you produce the play, you don't know whether it's ever going to be produced again. And it may take you another year and a half to write another play. And it's like, what am I going to do for that year and a half in between where I'm waiting to get produced? And so, yes, we certainly have control over this thing, which is a play. But what we don't ultimately have control over, unless we're independently wealthy or whether we want to put it up in our living rooms, we don't have control of when and where it's going to get produced.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And then once it is produced, a lot of times it's out of your hands. They can kind of take it in whatever direction they want to take it.

Lynn Nottage:

Hopefully, the playwright gets to remain involved in development of the piece. But a lot of times, once it's produced the first time, you don't have any control. It goes into the world and then to different theaters, and you can't always be there. And that's a little scary, but it's a leap of faith. And that's sort of the contract of being a playwright, is that you're entrusting your work to other people. I mean, and, you know, I liken playwriting to, like, a dinner party in which it's a potluck, in which you provide the table and the beverage, and then you don't know what's gonna. Everyone's gonna bring, you know, and sometimes there's no vegetable.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Have there been a couple of instances of productions of your plays that you would have disagreed with or you would have done it differently?

Lynn Nottage:

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I mean, I've seen productions of my plays where I've just wanted to run for the hills. I remember going to see one production. My husband was there, and at intermission, he says, let's go. And I'm like, I can't go. It's my play. I've just seen really kind of wild and wacky decisions made that are sort of contrary to anything in the narrative.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I mean, yeah, that's kind of, I.

Lynn Nottage:

Mean, but that's, you know, that's what happens.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

That's the beauty and the frustration of theater.

Lynn Nottage:

But, you know, the other side is I have been to productions where I am blown away by some of the choices that are being made. I, you know, I remember seeing like a community theater production of Intimate Apparel here in Brooklyn, because I'm in Brooklyn right now. And I thought, oh, this is one of the best productions I've ever seen. And it was all actors who had full time jobs and so they couldn't commit to a life in the theater but still wanted to make art. And they were so wonderful and the design was wonderful. I'm like, this is just those gifts that every once in a while you encounter.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

For story number two, we'll talk about a particularly rough period in 1997, and this is when you were going into rehearsals for Mud River Stone at Playwrights Horizon. Let's see, your daughter was only three weeks old at the time. You had been caring for your mother who had been diagnosed with als, and she passed away during the first preview of that production. I, I recently interviewed a good friend of mine, Dominic Thrasher, who transitioned from an actor to a children's book writer when he was diagnosed with als, and, and he talked about a firsthand account of, of dealing with that terrible disease. For you, what was it like as a caregiver to your mother?

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah, I mean, it was really difficult because I was at a moment in my life that should have been filled with an immensity of joy. I had just finished making first film side Streets. We were rapping that I was pregnant with my, my first child and I was going to have a big production at Playwrights Horizons. It's like, oh, the world is my oyster. But the other side of that coin is my mother had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrit's disease, and it was sort of ravaging her body in sort of indescribable and awful ways. And the disease was progressing quite quickly. And I had moved home when I was pregnant to actually help with her caregiving. And so I found myself trying to rewrite, you know, take care of my body because I was pregnant and, you know, feeding my mother and taking, taking care of her and just trying to negotiate which Was probably the most difficult moment in my life.

Lynn Nottage:

And I thought, I have to get this playing up. And fortunately my daughter came like two weeks early, so I was able to be with her for two weeks before going to rehearsal. But I literally would sit in rehearsal while feeding my daughter and then checking in because we had a nurse who was coming in during the day, well, caregiver who's coming in during the day to care for my mother while I was at rehearsal to make sure that everything was going well with my mother and trying to do rewrites.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Was there ever a time whenever you were pregnant or moving back to help your mother that you thought about taking a break from writing or was it.

Lynn Nottage:

Just not really possible, you know, if everything wasn't happening in succession? Most absolutely I would have taken a break from writing. But all of these things were lined up before I knew that there were going to be so many complications in my life. And they also, you know, it was like a perfect storm and I moved. That's the other thing. Because I had to move my life back to Brooklyn and everything, you know, and eight months pregnant, moving and wrapping this movie and doing all that, it was just, you know, it seems insane that I survived that ordeal. And then in the middle of previews, at the beginning of previews actually, my mother died. And I just had to deal with that awful grief of loss and be brave for a cast and for the production.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And it was at this time that the artistic director asked if you wanted to do a talk back. Yes, during this time.

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah. Which I found I still to this day, I find astonishing. And I, I, I, I wish I had pushed back. But he said, you know, we've booked the show and all these people are coming for a talk back. And this is the day after my mother died. And he's like, can you do it? And I thought, there's no way I can do it. And I did it. And I should have said no.

Lynn Nottage:

And that's the thing that I think it's really important to understand in this business is that first and foremost, we have to take care of our mental health and we have to take care of ourselves. And that by saying no, everything is not going to collapse.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Right.

Lynn Nottage:

And people will understand, I think that it's more dangerous when we say yes to things that are detrimental to our health and things that are detrimental to just the well being of everyone who's around you. And so, yeah, I did, and I still feel angry that I did it. All these years later. I feel like, oh my God, that was an immense character flaw. Why wasn't I stronger in that moment? But I know that I couldn't be stronger. I was, like, at the most vulnerable moment in my entire life. All reason had gone out of the window. I was incapable of making rational decisions.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah. Looking back at that time, how do you think you balance that? The joys of a new play, of a new daughter, While going through these challenging times with your mother, how did you balance all of that?

Lynn Nottage:

Well, I think you hit it on the nose. It's the joy of having a new daughter. It's having this new life that I'm responsible for and that I'm feeding. And so no matter how bad things get, it's like I have to take care of this other person. And this other person, every time I looked at her, you know, was like a bright shining light in my. My life. And I think that that's what kept me centered through so much.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah. Because you had this new life coming into the world, and while your mother was basically transitioning out of this world.

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah. Which was a really beautiful thing. And we actually had, you know, we had a ceremony which my grandmother led. There's a belief, her family's from the Caribbean, that if you pass the body of a child over the person who's dying, the spirit will enter. And so both my mother was a ruby and my daughter was a ruby. And so there was this moment where we passed her over, literally as my mother was dying. And so I feel like my daughter is this vessel for sort of the past, the present, and the future.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Do you see bits of your mother in your daughter?

Lynn Nottage:

I do see bits of my mother definitely in there.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, in the story number three here, you were putting up three shows in the middle of COVID which was just. It was a crazy time for all of us. You had two shows on Broadway. I believe this was Clyde's in mj. And then you also had an opera at Lincoln center. And this was the. The adaptation of Intimate Apparel into an opera. And now, from what I understand, MJ was actually supposed to open in 2020 before COVID but, like.

Lynn Nottage:

And so was Intimate Apparel.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah.

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah. I mean, it's. It's just. You talk about perfect storms, it's. Once again, Covid happened. And productions that were all supposed to happen at different time, different years, and all ended up happening at the same exact moment.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And so did both Intimate Apparel and mj, did they go through any rewrites or changes due to the pandemic, the racial awakening of that summer?

Lynn Nottage:

Sure. I mean, what was interesting. I can begin with Intimate Apparel is that we were in the middle of previews, so we actually had had two weeks of the show going up, and there were three audiences, and we got to see how they were reacting, which was really interesting, because I guess Lincoln center hadn't primed their audience enough that it was an opera. And so there was always that wonderful moment when the opera singer begins to sing and everyone in the audience, like, looks around like, what is this? And we actually had to put a little flyer, even though on the COVID it says, intimate Apparel, the opera of the. The playbill. We had to put additional flyer inside in really big letters that said, this is an opera.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

There will be singing.

Lynn Nottage:

There will be singing, but there will be people. Because people were just, like, stunned to experience that. And so that's what the first thing that we encountered is like, oh, we have to really prepare people that this is going to be opera in a small theater. Because I don't think people are used to that kind of expansive singing and emotion on a small stage. And then, you know, the piece was immensely beautiful, but it was overly long. And in opera, because of its complications, you don't. You can't, like, just cut things out the way you can in a musical or in a play during previews. I mean, it's just much more complicated than that.

Lynn Nottage:

And so when Covid interrupted and we had that year and a half pause, we had the opportunity to go back and revisit the piece in ways that you don't usually. Usually have. We were able to trim moments and expand moments and do the work that I think really benefited the piece in the long run. So when we reopened a year and a half, which was kind of spooky because we left and, like, everything was frozen in place. And when we came back on the tech table, it's like our pens were still at the same angle.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Oh, my gosh.

Lynn Nottage:

Like, nothing. The T, you know, nothing had been changed in a year and a half in that theater. It's almost like we just started right back up in place. But we had a year to reflect on the piece, which I think benefited, you know, and the actors had a. The singers had a year to think about the roles, and so they came back with, like, a fresh perspective. And so their acting was deeper and more connected. And I somehow think they wanted to be in collaboration because there was a year and a half in which we couldn't see other people. And so I think that that just made everything better, you know.

Lynn Nottage:

And I would say, you know, for mj, similarly, is that we had more time to ruminate on the piece and to work on the piece. Unfortunately, because of COVID part of our tech schedule got truncated. So, you know, there's these wonderful wind effects that we never got to put in. Empirical techniques, techniques that we never got to put in. And maybe it would have been like gilding the lily, but we. We were disappointed that we lost those things.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Now, did you get to add them in subsequent productions? Because I did.

Lynn Nottage:

See, no. We just decided, you know, it works. Without it, it's kind of expensive. We don't need all of that, though. I would love a wind machine. It doesn't love a machine.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, especially mj. He loved a wind machine. Yeah.

Lynn Nottage:

I mean, you know, it's like Beyonce loves. Like, singers love wind machines. And that would have been so cool, you know, the shirt flapping and the wind going. Yeah.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I got to see MJ in London. That was my first time see. But fortunately, I got to see it with Miles, who was absolutely stunning. It must have been like a revelation when he came into the room and inhabited that character.

Lynn Nottage:

You know, finding an mj, it's really hard because you need someone who's a triple threat. You need someone who can act, dance, and sing, like Michael Jackson. And, you know, Michael Jackson was Michael Jackson because he kind of was singular. And so when Miles Frost walked into the audition room and began, we all, like, looked at each other like, oh, my God, we found a unicorn.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah.

Lynn Nottage:

You know the phrase from everyone else. Yeah, he's really. And I thought in London, now that he's older, is that he's really owned the role in. In a new way that I think is. Is quite. Quite delightful to. To watch. I mean, he just is lighter on his feet, and he's more confident.

Lynn Nottage:

And, yeah, he's really. It's really evolved quite beautifully.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Was MJ a different kind of process for you? Because the others, you had kind of come up with the stories, the characters, whereas MJ was this iconic figure. Was that different writing?

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah. I mean, taking on the writing of something as complicated as Michael Jackson is daunting, and it's really scary. But I think that as artists, I mean, part of what our roles are is to lean into the complications and to lean into things that scare us. And I think the hardest thing when you're writing about someone like Michael Jackson is that he's so beloved, and there's so many people who know every single thing about him. Like, I remember on her first preview, someone complaining because, like, the little piece of Tape that he could around his finger, you know, was on, like, the second digit and not the first digit. You know, like, that's how micro people are when it comes to their love of this particular icon. And so going in, I thought, I'm gonna have to really make sure we get it right. One of the things that I feel really proud of is that people who know Michael very, very well said you got him, that this is right, and that the fans love the show.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And what were the conversations like? Because obviously Michael Jackson's had many highs, many lows, and certain controversies. What were the conversations around how to address some of the controversies in his life?

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah, I mean, of course you can't make a show about Michael Jackson without having this conversation. But really early on in the process, process, even before the documentary dropped, which kind of broadsided all of us, is that we decided that we wanted to micro focus on Michael Jackson the artist, and to look at a very small moment in his life, but a very important moment, which is when he was making this mega concert that would really come to define what those kind of mega concerts look like. You know, there wouldn't be any Beyonce Renaissance tour without sort of the dangerous tour that that was the prototype. And we thought it might be interesting for audiences to go inside of his process, because I think what happens with Michael Jackson is that everyone knows, like, the public Michael, but they don't really know Michael as the craftsperson and as the leader. And so we thought that's what we want to show. And so we just. Yeah, Michael's complications and all the noise out there is the final collaborator. So, like, people bring that into that space.

Lynn Nottage:

And I think that we leave room for that collaboration.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

I see sue, without addressing it head on or diving deep into those controversies, you let people's assumptions and all the things that they bring into the show kind of be a part of it.

Lynn Nottage:

That is part of it. I mean, we can't help it. But I do think that that's interesting and it's there. It's like, you know, when you go in there, regardless of what you feel about Michael Jackson, I think that you're able to have a complicated and fulfilling experience.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Now, before MJ opened at the end of 2021, that's when Clyde was opening Clyde's. It was your second Broadway play after Sweat, which won the Pulitzer Prize, was. Now, even though you'd been writing for decades, did you feel any particular on this sophomore effort on Broadway?

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah, I think there's always pressure when you put on a Broadway Play number one, because there are commercial demands, and so you want those tickets to sell, which is an anxiety that as a playwright, I shouldn't have to think about, but in a commercial production, you kind of have to think about it. But I think biggest complication is the fact that we were putting up a show during COVID with all of those protocols and all of that anxiety and not being able to be as intimate and close as you usually are when you're making something. I think that that was the thing that I found most challenging during this particular process.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

What was it like for you guys in rehearsal during that time? Because, yeah, there were protocols for rehearsals. Not just for the audiences.

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah, for everything. Yeah.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

For. For everyone. Was it. Was it challenging to find that intimacy when people have to be six feet apart?

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah, I mean, that's. That's. That's the hardest. Hardest thing is, like, when do the actors go in and actually make physical contact? Or do you want to withhold it because you don't want to get someone sick? And of course, I mean, you. You went through Covid, and you know what that was like, is that you. Rehearsals can be going great, and all of a sudden you get a call and three people have Covid, or the director has Covid, or the stage manager has Covid, and suddenly you're down to like, a skeletal cast and crew.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah. Did you go through much of that with Clyde's, even in.

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah, we certainly went through. Through that with Clyde's. And like every show during that period. And that's. And people, you know, how quickly we forget is during mj, we had to close for two weeks because of COVID You know, we just had to shut down operations. And for a musical that big, that's immensely expensive. But the decision was, let's get everyone healthy, otherwise we're going to just keep rolling with COVID And the same with Clyde's. You know, we had to shut down because there literally weren't enough people to be on stage because the understudies were getting.

Lynn Nottage:

Getting sick. But, you know, God bless the understudies during this period of time, they really were the heroes of COVID And in many instances, I mean, certainly for mj, the Standby carried our show for almost two months. Wow. After we opened.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Being an understudy myself, I. I know what it's like. It just at a moment's notice, you never know when you're going to get.

Lynn Nottage:

To go, yeah, well, I mean, literally, Standby did the show, we opened, and then the next day, the standby did the show MJ for two months.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Wow.

Lynn Nottage:

Wow.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

It's amazing.

Lynn Nottage:

And kept it going and built the audience.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And Intimate Apparel, I assume, went through some of the similar challenges because it.

Lynn Nottage:

Was around the same time, strangely enough. And I don't know whether it's because opera singers take better care of themselves. No one got Covid. I mean, we kind of laugh or whether our. You know, our COVID protocol officer just was running a tighter ship. But we did not have the problems on that show.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Well, that. Well, that's. Yeah.

Lynn Nottage:

And people were closer, and they're projecting, but we didn't. We. No one. I think that the opera singers were really good about rehearsal. Go home, steam your throats, don't see anyone.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They really kind of go into isolation themselves.

Lynn Nottage:

Isolation. They're used to doing it, so.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And were there particular challenges in taking your stage play Intimate Apparel and turning it into an opera?

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's always a challenge when you're leaping to a new form. It's like, how much of the narrative do you keep and do you rewrite? But the biggest thing is that it was shrinking the. Shrinking the. The play to the libretto and really finding a way to collaborate with the composer. I shouldn't say finding a way, because we actually had a very beautiful collaboration, but beginning to understand his role as a storyteller. Because I'm. As a playwright, I'm so used to micromanaging.

Lynn Nottage:

It's like I'm controlling everything. But in opera, it's really a medium where the composer shines. And so my job was to provide just enough for the composer to tell a more expansive story.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And obviously, the lyrics were taken from your dialogue then. So you had in the lyrics a little bit.

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah. Well, I wrote the libretto, so it's all. You know, I wrote all the. All of it. And so it's. He had to then, you know, infuse it with all that beautiful emotion and in the way that only music can do.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

With MJ and Intimate Apparel being both musical theater and opera, is that something you want to go into more, or do you still like the plays?

Lynn Nottage:

I do like the plays. I do. You know what I've discovered? I kind of love being in rehearsal for musical theater. I just find. Yeah, I love that part of the process of. Of finding the song and finding the music and also having more collaborators. So it's not just me. There are other people.

Lynn Nottage:

Like, there's a lyricist and a composer who are also helping you make decisions about the narrative. And I do also like the opera form because there's something more poetic and visual about it and you can tell stories in a much more fanciful way. Way. And so I am working on two other operas, one called this House, which I co wrote the libretto with my daughter Ruby Ayo Gerber. And Ricky Yin Gordon, who was the composer of Intimate Apparel, is the composer for that. And we're doing that at Opera St. Louis next summer. And then there's another opera that I also wrote with the Ruby, and this time composer Carlos Simon has been commissioned by the Met Lincoln center.

Lynn Nottage:

And so that will be in the big house sometime in the future.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Yeah. Ruby also went to Brown like you did and is following in your footsteps. What is it like watching her grow into a writer as well?

Lynn Nottage:

Well, I guess, you know, it was because she spent, you know, the first weeks of her life in a rehearsal room. I think it was inevitable that part of her would be drawn to storytelling and storytelling in a more collaborative way. And she is an incredibly beautiful writer. I mean, that's part of why I collaborated with her, is that I feel like she has these creative muscles that I aspire to have. I mean, she has, you know, a very robust imagination, but she also has access to a kind of poetic language that I can only dream of.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

So you're learning from her, and So.

Lynn Nottage:

I am 100% learning from her. I mean, isn't that what life is about, is continuing to grow and evolve and then make room for others to grow and evolve?

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Absolutely.

Well, thank you so much for joining us today. And remember, you can get early access to our full conversation by going to why I'll Never. And click subscribe. Well, that about does it. For this episode. I'm your host, Patrick Oliver Jones, in charge of writing, editing, and producing this podcast. Background music is from John Bartman and the theme song that was created by me. Stay tuned for the next episode when I ask the final five questions and we talk more about why I'll never make it. I got some of my information from Wikipedia, which I always have to be very.

Lynn Nottage:

You know what? I had to have my assistant go in there because for years, there's, like, misinformation. I'm like, I don't even know who. I don't know who wrote my Wikipedia page.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

Right.

Lynn Nottage:

And. But for years, there was, like, misinformation, and that's why I actually created my own website.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

It makes sense. Yeah. Right. So that way, the official record. Yes. No, no. I was listening to a podcast with John McWh. Water.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

And he was saying the same thing, that his page had all these different things. And he tried to change it, but they. But they. They tried to discourage the actual person from editing their own page, which I find strange, I guess. Yeah.

Lynn Nottage:

I mean, I guess you're not supposed to do that. But, you know, at some point, someone had put up, like, the least flattering picture of me. And I'm like, why would they do that? And then my assistant changed it, and then they changed it back. It was really.

Patrick Oliver Jones:

It's so crazy.

Lynn Nottage:

Yeah.

(This is a direct transcript and has not been edited for any spelling or grammatical errors.)