Lynn Nottage papers

Lynn Nottage (1964-) is an award-winning Black American playwright and screenwriter. She is the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice. Her plays, which have been produced in the United States and abroad, center the working-class and the under-represented. She has won two Obie awards, a Tony award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among many other honors.

Nottage was born in Brooklyn, New York. She was raised by her mother Ruby, a schoolteacher and principal, and her father Wallace, a child psychologist. Ruby and Wallace Nottage participated in local politics, activism, art, and community. Her parents were involved in projects including Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited, Freedom Schools during the Civil Rights Movement, the Brooklyn YWCA, the Martin Luther Commission, and the Coalitions for Black Parents. Nottage attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and completed her undergraduate degree at Brown University in 1986, followed by her MFA in Drama at Yale University in 1989. She worked as a press officer at Amnesty International for four years before becoming a playwright full-time.

In high school Nottage wrote her first play, The Dark Side of Verona, which won her a spot in a writing workshop lead by Stephen Sondheim. Her first staged production, entitled Rhinestones and Paste, was put on at Yale University in 1988. Her next play, Poof!, was presented at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in 1993 during the Humana Festival of New American Plays. Por’Knockers premiered off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre in 1995. Nottage premiered two plays in 1996, Crumbs from the Table of Joy at South Coast Repertory and Mud, River, Stone at The Acting Company.

During the 21st century, Nottage’s plays reached wider audiences and she began winning grants and prestigious awards. Her works from this period included: Las Meninas (2002), Intimate Apparel (2003), Fabulation, Or the Re-Education of Udine (2004), Ruined (2007), By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2011), Sweat (2015), Mlima’s Tale (2018), and Floyd’s (later renamed, Clyde’s, 2019).

The production of Intimate Apparel in 2003 led to the biggest shift in Nottage’s career thus far. It was her first collaboration with director Kate Whoriskey, who would become a long-time collaborator. Whoriskey directed many of Nottage’s plays including Ruined and Sweat for which Nottage won a Pulitzer Prize each. She wrote the book for the stage production of The Secret Life of Bees in 2019. Nottage won a Tony for Best Book of a Musical for MJ the Musical in 2022.

In addition to playwriting, Nottage writes and produces for television, film, and opera. She teaches at Columbia University.