1905, New York City. Esther, a black seamstress, sews exquisite lingerie for clients who range from wealthy white patrons to prostitutes. She has saved enough to allow her to dream of one day opening a beauty salon for black women, and at thirty-five years old, longs for a husband and a future. When she begins to receive beautiful letters from a lonesome Caribbean man who is working on the Panama Canal, it looks like life may be about to take a different course.
Intimate Apparel won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and the American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Award when it opened in 2004. It had its UK premiere at the Theatre Royal Bath, before transferring to Park Theatre, London, in 2014. Lynn Nottage won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for her play Ruined. Her other plays include Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Fabulation, Mud, River, Stone, Las Meninas and Poof !