Works & Process at the Guggenheim presents Lincoln Center Theater: Intimate Apparel by Ricky Ian Gordon and Lynn Nottage with Bartlett Sher

Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, presents Lincoln Center Theater: Intimate Apparel by Ricky Ian Gordon and Lynn Nottage with Bartlett Sher on Sunday, February 9, 2020 at 7:30pm.

Go behind the scenes of a new chamber opera based on Lynn Nottage’s popular play Intimate Apparel, with music by Ricky Ian Gordon and a libretto by the playwright and directed by Bartlett Sher. Set in turn-of-the-century New York, the opera tells the story of Esther, a lonely, single African American woman who makes her living sewing beautiful corsets and ladies’ undergarments. Seeking love and romance, Esther embarks on a letter-writing relationship with a mysterious suitor laboring on the Panama Canal and comes to realize that only her self-reliance and certainty of her own worth will see her through life’s challenges. Dramaturg and Director of the Opera Commissioning Program at The Metropolitan Opera Paul Cremo moderates a discussion with Gordon, Nottage, and Sher and cast members perform highlights, ahead of the opera’s opening performance on February 27.
 
Intimate Apparel is the first opera produced by Lincoln Center Theater and was developed by LCT and the Metropolitan Opera as part of the Met/LCT New Works Program, which is dedicated to developing new opera and music theater works.

TICKETS & VENUE
$45, $40 members (unless otherwise noted)
$10 TodayTix Lottery and student rush tickets one hour before performance, based on availability (student tickets for those under 30 with valid ID)
Priority ticket access and preferred seat selection starts Dec 10 for $500+ Friends of Works & Process and Guggenheim members at the Associate level and above.
For more information, call 212 758 0024 or 212 423 3587, Mon-Fri, 1-5 pm, or visit worksandprocess.org.
Peter B. Lewis Theater
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Avenue at 89th Street
Subway: 4, 5, 6, or Q train to 86th Street
Bus: M1, M2, M3, or M4 bus on Madison or Fifth Avenue
 
Lead funding for Works & Process is provided by the Ford Foundation,Florence Gould Foundation, the Christian Humann Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Evelyn Sharp Foundation, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.

RICKY IAN GORDON’s (Music) operas include Ellen West (a collaboration with poet Frank Bidart, for Beth Morrison Projects and Opera Saratoga, which will be seen in New York this month), The House Without A Christmas Tree (for Houston Grand Opera, with librettist Royce Vavrek), Morning Star (for Cincinnati Opera, with librettist William Hoffman), 27 (for Opera Theatre of St Louis, with librettist Royce Vavrek), A Coffin In Egypt (for Houston Grand Opera, with librettist Leonard Foglia), Rappahannock County (for Virginia Opera with librettist Mark Campbell), Green Sneakers (for the 2008 Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival), The Grapes of Wrath (for Minnesota Opera, with librettist Michael Korie), The Grapes of Wrath (concert version for Carnegie Hall, with Jane Fonda narrating), The Tibetan Book Of The Dead (for Houston Grand Opera, with playwright Jean Claude Van Itallie) and Orpheus and Euridice (for Lincoln Center’s Great Performances, for which he won an OBIE Award in 2005). His musicals include Sycamore Trees (for the Signature Theatre, which won a Helen Hayes Award), My Life With Albertine (for Playwrights Horizons, with writer/director Richard Nelson, which won an AT&T Award and The Gilman and Gonzalez-Falla Music Theater Foundation Award) and Dream True (for The Vineyard Theatre with writer/director Tina Landau, which won a Richard Rodgers Award).  His upcoming projects include Private Confessions (a musical theater piece with playwright Richard Nelson) and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (a new opera, with librettist Michael Korie). His songs have been recorded and performed by such artists as Renée
 Fleming, Audra McDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Frederica Von Stade, Dawn Upshaw, Nadine Sierra, Harolyn Blackwell, Judy Collins, Nathan Gunn, and the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Other awards include the National Institute for Music Theater Award, the Stephen Sondheim Award, the Jonathan Larson Foundation Award, the Constance Klinsky Award, The Shen Family Foundation Award and The Carnegie-Mellon University Alumni Award.
 
LYNN NOTTAGE (Libretto) is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her plays Sweat (also Obie Award, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and Tony and Drama Desk award nominations for Best Play) and Ruined (also New York Drama Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel, Obie, and Audelco awards for Best Play).  Her other plays include Milma’s Tale; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark; Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine (Obie Award); Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Las Meninas; Mud, River, Stone; Por’knockers; and POOF!.  She wrote the book for the musical version of the novel The Secret Life of Bees, which recently premiered at the Atlantic Theater Company, and in July 2017, developed This is Reading, a performance installation based on two years of interviews at the Franklin Street Reading Railroad Station in Reading, PA.  Recipient of a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship, she is the co-founder of the production company Market Road Films, whose most recent projects include The Notorious Mr. Bout, First to Fall, Remote Control, and is a writer/producer on the Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It, directed by Spike Lee.  She will also be represented this summer on Broadway having written the book for the upcoming Michael Jackson musical MJ.  
 
BARTLETT SHER (Director) is Resident Director of Lincoln Center Theater where he directed Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific, winning the Tony Award for Best Director.  He was also nominated for Tony Awards for his LCT productions of the recent Lerner & Loewe’s My Fair Lady, Oslo (also National Theatre, London), Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King and I (also London), Golden Boy, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Awake and Sing!, and The Light in the Piazza.  His additional LCT productions include Blood and Gifts and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (also London).  He directed the Metropolitan Opera productions of Roméo et Juliette (also Salzburg, Milan, Chicago); Two Boys (also English National Opera); Il Barbiere di Siviglia (also Baden Baden); Otello; Les Contes d’Hoffmann; Le Comte Ory; and L’Elisir d’Amore.   Broadway: the current To Kill a Mockingbird (Tony Award nomination), Fiddler on the Roof (Drama Desk Award), The Bridges of Madison County. Off-Broadway: Waste (Obie Award for Best Play), Cymbeline (Callaway Award; also Royal Shakespeare Company), Don Juan, Pericles (TFANA, BAM). Opera: Rigoletto (Staatsoper Berlin); Faust (Baden Baden); Mourning Becomes Electra (Seattle Opera, New York City Opera). He was previously Artistic Director of Seattle’s Intiman Theatre (2000-2009), Company Director for the Guthrie Theater, Associate Artistic Director at Hartford Stage Company, and currently serves on the board of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.
 
Works & Process at the Guggenheim
Described by The New York Times as “an exceptional opportunity to understand something of the creative process,” for 35 years, New Yorkers have been able to see, hear, and meet the most acclaimed artists in the world, in an intimate setting unlike any other. Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, has championed new works and offered audiences unprecedented access to generations of leading creators and performers. Most performances take place in the Guggenheim’s intimate Frank Lloyd Wright-designed 273-seat Peter B. Lewis Theater. In 2017, Works & Process established a new residency and commissioning program, inviting artists to create new works, made in and for the iconic Guggenheim rotunda. worksandprocess.org.