After many months of hard work and dedication from a talented cast and crew, Missouri State T&D Department’s Sweat is ready to hit the stage!
At a working-class bar in Reading, Pennsylvania, a group of lifelong friends gathers after a hard day’s work at the Olmsted Steel Mill, as they have for more than 20 years. But things are about to change. Rumors are flying that the company is planning layoffs and recruiting non-union Latino workers for less money. Suddenly, the middle-class, unionized steelworkers are faced with an existential threat to their livelihoods and retirement security, as well as to the viability and character of their community. Based on the playwright’s personal interviews with citizens of Reading in 2011 — the year it was declared “the poorest small city in the nation” — the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Sweat” gives voice to the powerful feelings of loss, betrayal, anger, resentment and grievance that scar Rust Belt America. To get more insight on the rehearsal process of this production, we went to director Kristy Thomas.
When asked about the content of the show, Kristy stated, “Sweat tells the story of a group of friends, who have spent their lives sharing drinks, secrets, and laughs while working together on the floor of the local. When layoffs and picket lines begin to chip away at their trust, the friends find themselves pitted against each other in a heart-wrenching fight to stay afloat.” Cast member Tristan Brown, playing Jason in the upcoming production, went on to describe some of the main themes found in the show, which can be identified as “nurtured relationships and the effect life can have on us as people. Much of the show takes place in a bar that the characters frequent, this bar comes to represent that common ground that the group of friends have, and we see how the relationships ebb and flow and adjust with the events that life throws at them.”
This production of Sweat is playing in repertory with another production currently in rehearsals, Waiting for Lefty. This means much of the rehearsal space had to be shared, as each show is being put on on the same stage. To get a better idea of how this process worked, we asked director Kristy to give us a rundown. She stated, “The Annex allowed us to have a taped out to scale stage for day to day rehearsals and what the tech team did with the black box is fantastic.” During the rehearsal process, Kristy ran into no obstacles, and was very appreciative of all the hard work put into this production by the entire cast and crew. She specifically said,
“The cast was great, the understudies showed up for every rehearsal and killed it when it was time for them to rehearse and our stage management team ran the rehearsals well. In addition all of the members of the tech team: lighting, set design, props, costumes, sound, set construction, any I may have missed, plus their advisors gave me everything I asked for and did a fantastic job making “Sweat” come to life just as I had imagined it.”
Why see Sweat? Tristan puts it best, “Often, at least for myself, it’s easy to be trapped in the pit of feeling like there is no escape from the issues that life drowns us in. But the important bit about the pieces of literature we’ve selected to perform is humanity. It feels like an overused word, but it’s so important! The fact that humans make mistakes and are always seeking and striving for something better is a universally recognized practice. We can never be fully satisfied with ourselves or the world around us, so we must love the pursuit. The pursuit is what makes life beautiful.”
“We as people fight and struggle for a sense of freedom and control over our lives, and this show highlights people’s imperfections and the raw humanity that we all have.”
