Welcome to our new video series: Ask an Artist! Each week we’ll go behind-the-scenes to give an inside look at the Alliance Theatre.
This episode’s focus is on costumes with Costume Shop Manager Spencer Henderson and Design Assistant Nicole Clockel.
View all videos in the series here.
Welcome to our new video series: Ask an Artist! Each week we’ll go behind-the-scenes to give an inside look at the Alliance Theatre.
This episode’s focus is on ??????? with BOLD Artistic Director Fellow Tinashe Kajese-Bolden and Producer/Casting Director Jody Feldman.
View all videos in the series here.
If you’re a feminist, like me, or feminist adjacent by choice, like my husband, watching film noir can present an interesting challenge. The men in these stories are usually desperate, angry and violent toward themselves and others. Since the crimes or offenses for which they are being relentlessly pursued by other men, either police or other lawbreakers, usually have nothing to do with their treatment of women, they are rarely, if ever, punished for it. But correcting the bad behavior of unenlightened men is not the mission of a great noir. So, what I do is keep my eye out for interesting women, who usually fall into three categories: good girl, bad girl, or sainted mother. The bad girls are always the ones to watch. So, while any such examination cries out for at least one Gloria Grahame classic and how can I not include Ava Gardner’s unforgettably duplicitous Kitty in The Killers, there is satisfaction in the discipline of examining only five, which brings us to this week’s list:
5 Women Finding Their Power in All the Wrong Places (except Laura)
- Laura (1944, directed by Otto Preminger). Gene Tierney plays the title character, the least powerful of these ladies, a rare noir innocent who floats through the story without initiating much action, but reacting beautifully to the machinations of Waldo Lydecker, an amazing Clifton Webb whose elaborate bath opens the film, and the unflappable presence of Detective Mark MacPherson (Dana Andrews) who falls in love with her and rescues her all at the same time.
- Devil in a Blue Dress (1995, directed by Carl Franklin). Not as helpless as Laura, but not really powerful enough to pull off the blackmail scheme she has concocted, the racially ambiguous Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beal) is in need of the help provided by Easy Rollins, one of Denzel Washington’s best roles, and Don Cheadle, who steals every scene he’s in as the mysterious Mouse. Monet is no match for the physical strength and sadistic violence of the bad guys who are looking for her. For that kind of combat, she would have had to call on Hope Emerson…
- Cry of the City (1948, directed by Robert Siodmak). This is a noir driven by male characters, but it is the insanely powerful physical presence of Rose Givens, a sadistic, gangster, masseuse, played by former professional strong woman and Academy Award nominated actress Hope Emerson, that puts the film in a class by itself. At 6’2” tall and 200 pounds, Emerson’s first shadowy entrance where she seems to just get bigger and bigger and BIGGER, is one I will never forget.
- The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946, directed by Tay Garnett). Also unforgettable is the first entrance of the unhappily married Cora Smith, played by Lana Turner. Dressed in white short, tiny top and high heels when she first encounters Frank Chambers, played by John Garfield, her power is one of the few that women are allowed in noirs; her sexual allure. Frank, her partner in crime, is so out of his league that you almost feel sorry for him. Almost.
- Double Indemnity (1944, directed by Billy Wilder). You almost feel sorry for Fred McMurray, too, playing the not-as-cool-as-he-thinks-he-is Walter Neff in this perfect noir. Barbara Stanwyck plays the unhappily married Phyllis Dietrichson, with a combination of intensity and languor that is impossible to resist, even when you know she’s lying through her teeth. She’s the kind of woman who knows how to stash a hand gun between the couch cushions just in case things get tight, while wearing a slinky white gown. Stanwyck puts the femme in femme fatale in this film, and even though she comes to no good end, and richly deserves her fate, in noir world, who are we to judge?
Share your list of 5 things with Pearl here.
The Alliance Theatre is hosting a weeklong Virtual Play Club focusing on the 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat as a catalyst for connectivity, creativity and civic participation.
Sweat is an incisive account of changing attitudes toward labor and class in America that examines the human costs of the urgent questions we grapple with today in the Covid-19 crisis—what counts as essential labor? How does unemployment impact our mental health? How is economic mobility shaped by race and ethnicity?
Virtually gather with family and friends using the “HOST YOUR OWN PLAY CLUB” guide and explore artistic and civic issues in Sweat. Follow prompts for discussion and artistic interpretation to turn your gathering into an at-home theatre experience that you create.
Then, join us on May 1st – International Labor Day – for a conversation with Tinashe Kajese-Bolden, Director, and Pearl Cleage, award winning Atlanta-based playwright, on Sweat and the role of theatre in reflecting and creating in times of crisis. Featuring guest appearances and commentary from Atlanta theatre artists and community activists.
As you are reading along, get an insight into artistic perspectives on act 2, scene 2 of Sweat from the cast.
Lines Referenced in SWEAT Audio – Act 2 , Scene 2
Jason ‘s Perspective
Pg. 62
JASON. “The union won’t stand for it.” CYNTHIA. “Guess what, the union don’t got a lot to say about it.”
Tracey’s Perspective
Pg. 62
CYNTHIA. “You’ve been at making? Olstead’s a long time and they don’t want to carry the burden anymore.”
CYNTHIA. “With this NAFTA bullshit they can move the whole factory to Mexico tomorrow morning, and a woman like you will stand for sixteen hours and be happy making a fraction of what they’re paying you.”
CYNTHIA. “It ain’t gonna be easy. I can tell you how it’s gonna play Sweat out. They’re gonna ask for everyone to take a pay cut to save jobs. Sixty percent.”
Pg. 63
CYNTHIA. “They’re gonna ask for concessions on your benefits package next. I’m being straight. No bullshit. They’re gonna ask you for more hours.”
Cynthia’s Perspective
Pg. 63
CYNTHIA. “…I am doing everything I can, babe. And I don’t know what more you want me to do?”
Chris’s Perspective
Pg. 62
CHRIS. “Lester’s on it.”
Taking care of ourselves and our communities is critical in times of crisis. In this article, explore how characters in Sweat respond to adversity, and hear from community partners about some strategies to help us cope in difficult circumstances.
Our mental health—our emotional, psychological, and social well-being—is an essential part of our overall health. A person’s mental health can be shaped by biological factors like brain chemistry and genes as well as environmental or socioeconomic factors like working conditions, poverty and economic insecurity, substance abuse, racism, or sexism.
In Sweat, we see a number of these difficult circumstances at play in the lives of each character, influencing how they speak, act, and relate to others. Tracey grapples with shame and anger after being locked out of the plant and losing an important part of her identity. “Do you know what it’s like to get up and have no place to go?” she asks. “I ain’t had the feeling ever. I’m a worker. I have worked since I could count money. That’s me.” Chris battles a feeling of despair about his future at the plant. “The machines are so fucking loud I can’t even think,” he confesses. “It’s getting harder and harder to pull myself up and go to work every day.” Distress even pushes some characters to blame others and commit acts of violence, as we see at the end of the play.
| A reframing exercise can be a great first step to ground ourselves during difficult moments. Pam Brooks-Crump, with the peer-led Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network, recommends pausing and taking a breath. Try to see your situation from a different perspective by “starting with what’s going right for you,” she explains. Make a list of all the ways, big and small, that you’ve “made it” so far today. Then, consider what can or cannot be tweaked about your situation, and end by reflecting on what keeps you hopeful to move forward and take action. This reframing reflection can be done on your own, using an expressive mode like journaling, or with others you trust. |
Though grim circumstances sometimes lead characters in Sweat to shame or blame, we see characters turning towards care, connection, and problem-solving in the face of adversity, too. The Olstead workers come together to celebrate birthdays and reminisce about shared memories. Brucie and Stan confide in each other, “raw and honest,” about their worries, their anger, and their desperation. Chris looks ahead to his future and applies to the teaching program at Albright. Sweat brings to life the many ways we all try to find a path forward through loss, uncertainty, or difficult feelings.
According to Alexia Jones, the founder of Atlanta’s R2ISE Theatre, creating, connecting, and reflecting through the arts can be a great way of promoting our individual and collective wellbeing in times of hardship. R2ISE is a peer-led recovery community organization that uses all forms of creative expression to foster healing for those in recovery from addictive diseases or facing mental health challenges.
“What the arts can do for us,” Jones says, “is allow us to see our situation from a new perspective: to illustrate our stories and experiences back to us in a new light.” Jones believes that observing, creating, and sharing art is not a luxury or an indulgence in times of crisis but a process that is critical to our health and survival. The arts can help us maintain hope: a way of “keeping our eyes over the fence and imagining. . . and using that imagination to take us places that we physically cannot go,” she explains. Creative expression can also transform how we understand, endure, and move through the difficult circumstances we face.
| Try out a short creative activity as a way of pausing and taking care of yourself. In Sweat, each character’s identity is important to the choices they make and the words they speak. Create a piece of art that shows who you are and how you understand yourself. You don’t need any particular supplies or experience to do this: you could make a collage using objects in your home; write a song or curate a music playlist; make a photo slideshow or timeline; or create a drawing, painting, poem, or play. If you’re up for it, share your work with your play club or on social media using #AlliancePlayClub. |
Following Jones’s lead, consider taking time to reflect—on your own or with your group—on what the play club experience and activities made you feel and think. “There’re a few questions we love to ask at R2ISE Theatre” during the creative process, Jones explains. “What keeps you hopeful? What’s working in your life? What could be better? What’s next?” Transformations take place when we pause to create and reflect, Jones believes. “We can come out of that process having the answers” for how to move forward in difficult times.
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Continue your learning, creating, and reflecting with any of the following resources from organizations throughout Atlanta:
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If you are experiencing stress and don’t know how to cope, a mental health professional can be an important resource for providing support and strategies for mental wellness during a difficult time. Visit mentalhealth.gov for more information about ways to get help for you or your loved ones.
The information presented here is adapted from resources provided by the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, Mental Health America of Georgia, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness. The Alliance Theatre is especially grateful to the following individuals for their contributions to this post: Pam Brooks-Crump, Project Coordinator for Trauma-Informed Care at GMHCN; Chris Johnson, Director of Communications at GMHCN; Alexia Jones, founder of R2ISE Theatre; and Amelia Ward, a graduate student in mental health counseling.
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Pretty much every theatre artist has a slightly individuated story on the origins of our art form. Elders sharing enacted wisdom with their people? Check. Citizens gathering to contemplate their collective community myths? Check. Mortals pursuing clarity around the nature of fate by embodying it? Yup, that too.
But the common denominators in all theatrical origin stories are a gathering, a performance of sorts, and a story.
In our present moment, we’re being challenged to think of all of those elements in new ways. Rather than gathering in live assembly, we are learning to gather virtually. Rather than artists performing in one unified and literal space while an audience watches in another unified and literal space, we are all taking and making space on shared screens.
And the story?
Well that’s the cool part of this moment.
Playwrights – who are writers, who are poets, who are sages and griots and civic barometers – write stories. And while we call them scripts and they typically live first in 3D form in the hands of actors and directors and next in ephemeral form in the witness of audiences – well those scripts are lovely and malleable things. They can, and should, be read by anyone with a hankering to do so. And we’re hoping you’ve got that hankering.
Through our SWEAT Play Club, we’re going to wrestle and dance with the brilliant words of Lynn Nottage. Sometimes by reading in solitude, sometimes by discussing in community, sometimes by witnessing those words’ enactment. All of those parts have the potential of adding up to something that might feel a whole lot like theatre.
Maybe this is the 21st century origin story to add to the rest.
Visit our Sweat Play Club landing page for more information and to get involved.
Sometimes it’s all we can do to hold ourselves together in these strange and perilous days no matter how hard we work on it. Sure, there are brief times when we are able to momentarily distract ourselves from the debilitating fear that can overtake us when we spend too much time worrying about The Big Picture, like when will it all be over? Or the small details, like can we please use a song other than “Happy Birthday” if we time it out so we’re still obeying the hand washing guidelines? But for most of us, including me, there are too many moments right through here when the crushing weight of our new reality seems about to overwhelm us with a deep sadness for what we had and what we’ve lost. Those feelings are real – so real! – but trust me, they are not going to help you get on with it. For that, you need discipline, patience, courage, confidence, faith and a good soundtrack. Which brings me to this week’s list. Play them in order for optimal effect.
5 Songs I Play When I Need to Have a Little Weep and Then Come Back Strong:
1. “Easy to Be Hard,” from the film of Hair. This song has been recorded many times, but it is in the film version that Cheryl Barnes will break your heart twice before she even finishes asking the song’s initial question: How can people be so heartless?
2. “Many Rivers to Cross,” from the film The Harder They Come. Jimmy Cliff wrote and sings this beautiful song on the soundtrack of the 1972 film in which he plays an aspiring reggae singer who comes to the city to make a name for himself and instead keeps running into those heartless people Cheryl was talking about. His journey does not end well, but this song expresses his wistful hope that eventually it will.
3. “There’s a Place for Us,” from West Side Story. Broadway’s Ben Platt performed this song at the 60th Grammy Awards and made it his own without even breaking a sweat. His delicate and defiant version strikes my ear even more deeply in this moment.
4. “Over the Rainbow,” from The Wizard of Oz. I can’t say anything new about this classic, except that when Judy Garland sings it, I always feel hopeful. And vulnerable. And that’s as it should be as we head into our closing number…
5. “Seasons of Love,” from Rent. This song, with its unforgettable opening lines, “525,600 minutes/525,600 moments so dear/525,600 minutes/how do you measure, measure a year?” will give you a huge jolt of renewed faith in the possibility that joy can be found in community, no matter the challenges we face, as long as we stay together. The song’s answer to that opening question is something I believe more strongly every day. “Measure your life in love.”
Share your list of 5 things with Pearl here.
The Alliance Theatre got together with Lydia Glaize over Facetime to talk about Sweat, work, and the local labor movement. In her role as Labor Liaison for United Way of Greater Atlanta, Glaize supports union members and their families through programming, fundraising, and advocacy work. She also manages the United Way’s Labor Emergency Relief Fund, which supports the families of the labor community in their time of critical need. Glaize is a former educator and served as city councilwoman in Fairburn, Georgia. Read on for some highlights from our conversation.
Alliance Theatre (AT): Hi, Lydia! I’d love to start with your first reaction to Sweat.
Lydia Glaize (LG): Good to see you! So many things are happening simultaneously right now, we are in a global crisis, but I certainly wanted to take some time out and say how important I think this play is for the labor community, the Alliance Theatre, United Way, and the arts community in Atlanta.
Sweat gives us a close-up view of the intricacies of global and local crisis in our cities and for our people. I thought it was just done so well. I was wondering how one scene, a bar scene, was really going to hold the depth of all that was going in Reading, Pennsylvania, at that time…It was brilliant!
AT: Based on your background and perspective, what about Sweat stood out for you?
LG: Reading, Pennsylvania, was probably less than an hour and half away from where I grew up. That’s the area where my Dad and his brothers came up when they left sharecropping in Georgia. He was one of those “scabs” that crossed the line in the Pennsylvania steel mill industry in the late 1950s. There were not a lot of jobs for African Americans other than farming in the South, and it was difficult for them get hired at those manufacturing and steel plants in the Northeast and Midwest. Sweat really helped me see what I heard growing up about my dad and his brothers finding work in the factories. It gave me a real picture of the divides inside a community when people are just trying to eke out an existence and feed their families.
Also, I was not fully aware of the devastating emotional toll on people when manufacturing jobs leave America’s towns. As a former municipal elected official, I was heartbroken. When I was in office, I was always searching for ways to bring members of our city into a better quality of life, through higher education, better jobs, and supporting manufacturing companies in my city. To live through the disappearance of your local economy is, no doubt, horrific. However, just reading through the play—it pulled my heartstrings. I wanted to cry. Then, I wanted to clap when I saw the camaraderie when everyone was working together, the fears were not there, people’s guards were down and there was room for this unity and care—one to another. It broke down barriers. As soon as the local economy was relocated out of the city and hard times came in Sweat, all the other divisions came back along with emotional pain, isolation, and lack of resources and alternatives.
AT: What were some of the big takeaways for you, reading Sweat?
LG: I think a lesson learned is that we keep repeating these cycles during crisis. This play reminds us that we have to rise above crisis intact, because humanity is one brotherhood. If one part is not doing well and is hungry, then certainly those who are not hungry and doing well should care in some way. I hope that this play will continue to give us a better sense of our responsibilities to humanity, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a local union in which 80% of their workers are without work. I think we’ve got to be ready to mobilize and assist these working families—we don’t want to continue to repeat the past. How can we learn and get better and do better? We’re here again, in critical times with the worst economic downturn globally in this century, or maybe ever. And how will we come out of this? This is play so timely for its Atlanta audience.
Sweat gives us a picture of our humanity during critical times. It mirrors our fears and gives our heart time to process it all. Hopefully, we’ll do better, one for another, and get through this pandemic together without all the fears and the fatal outcomes when we’re divided.
AT: Were there particular characters that stood out to you?
LG: Stan was the character who I really kind of rode in his shoes throughout the play, until I got to the end. I was not prepared for what happened to him; that was very surprising. However, throughout the play, he was the level-headed guy. He was the one who was wiser, had experienced three generations at the plant, had remained in the town after retiring due to a workplace injury. He attempted to bring different generations, different racial and ethnic groups, together. He was their encourager. I thought if ever there was a person that you want be, it’s Stan. He was a peacemaker. The one who finds good and points to the things that overall are right to do or not to do. His character for me was refreshing; he gave hope to a lot of the folks who were working at the plant and coming into the bar.
The relationship between Cynthia and Tracey was interesting to me, as well. Not only did they have a relationship; it began when they were young. It’s so much easier to become friends and nurture a solid relationship when you are eighteen or nineteen years old, and they basically started life together, worked together, travelled together, had husbands or significant others, and had their sons play together. They were really a close-knit group. To see their friendship get torn apart was difficult to read, and I felt sad. But I thought they were brave women. They were supportive women. They were the life of the party, the life of the town, the life of the plant. They didn’t let life get them down, when they were together. The fact that they went head-to-head for the supervisor’s job and they welcomed it, saying, “Ok, fine. You’re applying? I’m applying”—that was difficult to wrap my head around.
AT: It’s so devastating to see that relationship fracture during the play.
LG: Yes. I do think that management was crafty on who they selected for the position. Because they knew where it was going to lead and who they needed to put on the front lines—to lock out their friends who had been employed there for years. They never considered the human toll on relationships.
AT: I’d love to know more about your current work at United Way and your role as Labor Liaison. How did you find yourself in that role?
LG: I do want to set the stage and say that United Way has partnered with the largest federation of unions in the United States—the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)—for over eighty years. There has been long-standing relationship between the largest nonprofit in the United States and the labor community. They have the same priorities in the areas of health, education, welfare, workplace safety, and community outreach.
When I came to this work as Atlanta’s Labor Liaison, it was the perfect job after being an educator, a former auditor with the IRS, and, most recently, an elected official. I worked closely with the new pension laws in the early 1980s. Labor sounded the alarm on corporations using retirement funds in the course of everyday business. There were no federal laws and guidelines to keep them from dipping into retirement accounts and using them in their everyday business model. The federal government responded with the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA) of 1982. I was one of hundreds of auditors around the nation hired to approve existing and new retirement plans under the new guidelines. Labor was on the forefront of that monumental win.
When I accepted the Labor Liaison position at United Way of Greater Atlanta in 2018, I saw an opportunity to support working class folks who stand on the front lines of the American economy, yet at times will need support of various kinds. This Labor Liaison position was created to be there in times of need for union employees.
AT: What are some ways that you support labor and their families in your work?
LG: I work in five areas: community engagement, relationship building, union support, labor emergency relief, and advocacy for issues that relate to working people. I manage the Labor Emergency Relief Fund, in which union members can receive financial assistance during an emergency. United Way–AFL-CIO also forms partnerships in the nonprofit community, in the faith-based community, in the health industry, and many other areas to assure that we’ve built safety nets for our labor union members and community members when they enter into a crisis or experience need. We also work on long-term sustainable solutions to societal ills of poverty, health disparities, education disparities, and food and housing insecurities.
The labor community also offers apprenticeship programs which are approved by the US Department of Labor. In the Atlanta area, we have 13 apprenticeships: they are “earn while you learn” programs. So, if you want to be a brick mason, an electrical worker, a sheet metal worker, or a MARTA bus driver, those programs are available. You go to work immediately with one of the union employers, and you take classes in the evenings or on the weekends, and eventually you can become a certified journeyman.
AT: What are the most important issues guiding your advocacy work?
LG: Sustainable or livable wage is extremely important to begin to eradicate abject poverty in Georgia. You would not believe it, but it is still under $7. This is inhumane when we consider the soaring cost to reside in metro areas of Georgia, particularly the Atlanta metro area. Affordable housing stock is virtually impossible to find for those living between the 10% to 60% average medium household income, and workforce development is challenged to keep apace with the new job markets. These a just a few areas of our advocacy work that affect the general population in Georgia.
AT: What are some of the connections you see between your work and Sweat?
LG: I saw labor union executives fighting on the front lines to keep jobs on American soil and to ensure livable wages and safe working conditions—this is the same fight in the labor community in 2020. My role allows for collective work with the labor community toward our shared missions of providing support and sustainable programming to address societal ills.
AT: What are some ways that Sweat play club participants can support the labor union community, especially this time of global crisis?
LG: Remember those employees on the front lines and thank them. I think we’re doing it. We’re coming and we’re saying, “Thank you for putting your life on the line and being on the front by coming to work every day to make sure there’s food on the shelf, that we have a way of going through the line to pay you, that we can bring back home what is sustenance for us.” Remember them. If they’re in your community, don’t forget to write them a note to say, “Thank you, is there anything we can do since you’re working an average of twelve- to sixteen-hour days? Can we bring your family something?” Somewhere in life, we’re running across them, whether it’s the grocery store, the airport, on your block, at your child’s school, at your synagogue or church or place of worship. There are union members all around us, and they may need our help. Ask around and find out what you can do to bring a little hope and a little help.
United Way of Greater Atlanta and the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta have partnered to create the Greater Atlanta COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund to support individuals, families, and communities impacted by the pandemic. You can help by donating online. We would be very excited and grateful for the financial support.
AT: Thank you, Lydia, for talking with us and sharing more about your background, your work, and your reaction to Sweat. Be well!
LG: It was just amazing. I have a son who is a thespian, and I usually go and see the end product, but now I’m going to take a deeper interest and start reading more plays! Thank you.
To learn more about how United Way of Greater Atlanta and the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta are supporting working families during the COVID-19 pandemic, visit the United Way’s website. Click here donate to the relief fund. United Way has also set up a Digital Listening Tool for organizations to assess the greatest needs of the greater Atlanta community and develop a community-informed plan for pandemic assistance.
Note: this interview has been shortened and edited from the original conversation on April 16.
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