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Meet the cast that’s about to work up Denver Center’s ‘Sweat’
Top row, from left: Cycerli Ash, Jordan Bellow and Derek Jack Chariton. Middle row: Tara Falk, Sam Gregory and Leslie Kalarchian. Bottom row: Gustavo Márquez, Timothy D. Stickney and William Oliver Watkins.
Cast of nine familiar and fresh faces will bring Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer-winning look at working-class America to The Space Theatre
The DCPA Theatre Company, the producing regional theatre arm of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, has announced the full cast and creative team for Sweat, the 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by Lynn Nottage, running April 26 through May 26 in The Space Theatre.
Among those in the cast who will be familiar to Denver theatre audiences are Sam Gregory, a veteran of 48 DCPA Theatre Company productions; Tara Falk, a Broadway veteran who starred in Curious Theatre’s Time Stands Still; William Oliver Watkins, who played Jackie Robinson the Denver Center’s Jackie & Me; and Gustavo Márquez, who got his start in the Denver Center’s ticket office and has since appeared in Native Gardens and A Christmas Carol. Timothy D. Stickney will be familiar to fans of TV’s “One Life to Live.” He played RJ Gannon on the daytime serial for 13 years.
For the people of Reading, Pennsylvania, work is so much more than a paycheck – it’s the glue that holds the town together. The floor of their central factory is where lifelong friendships are made, where love blossoms and where family members work side-by-side. But as layoffs become the new norm and a cheaper workforce threatens the viability of the local union, the threads that once kept the community together begin to fray.
Nottage began working on the play in 2011 by interviewing residents of Reading, which at the time was, according to the United States Census Bureau, one of the poorest cities in America, with a poverty rate above 40 percent. Using warm humor and deep empathy, Nottage paints a moving portrait of today’s working class in decline.
“One of the things I love the most about Lynn Nottage is the way she takes an idea and makes it human,” said Artistic Director Chris Coleman. “Lynn is a significant voice in American theatre. Denver audiences responded enthusiastically to Ruined when we produced it in 2011 and I’m thrilled we get to experience her work again. I look forward to taking the questions this play asks and diving deeper into conversations with the Denver community.” (Note: Sweat will include a post-show talkback following every performance beginning May 4.)
The New York Times called the play “an extraordinarily moving drama that powerfully contrasts life’s happiest highs with the heart-wrenching struggles of survival.”
The director of Sweat is Rose Riordan, with a creative team that includes Tony Cisek, who designed the set for Anna Karenina.
Cast:
- Cycerli Ash (“Skinned”) as Cynthia
- Jordan Bellow (A Raisin in the Sun, IRT/Syracuse Stage) as Chris
- Derek Jack Chariton (Eccentricities of a Nightingale, Pacific Resident Theater) as Jason
- Tara Falk (Metamorphoses on Broadway) as Tracey
- Sam Gregory (48 productions at DCPA including A Christmas Carol as Ebenezer Scrooge) as Stan
- Leslie Kalarchian (Celebrity Row, Portland Center Stage) as Jessie
- Gustavo Márquez (Native Gardens, DCPA) as Oscar
- Timothy D. Stickney (Shakespeare in Love, Chicago Shakespeare Theater) as Brucie
- William Oliver Watkins (As You Like It, DCPA) as Evan
Creative team:
- Rose Riordan, Director
- Tony Cisek, Scenic Designer
- Kevin Copenhaver, Costume Designer
- Charles MacLeod, Lighting Designer
- Elisheba Ittoop, Sound Designer
- Geoffrey Kent, Fight Director
- Christine Menzies, Voice and Dialect
- Mary Blair, Research Dramaturg
- Harriet Bass, CSA, and Grady Soapes, CSA (Casting)
- Kurt Van Raden (Stage Manager)
- Michael G. Morales (Assistant Stage Manager)
- Molly Bibeau (Apprentice Stage Manager)
Sweat: Ticket information
- Written by: Lynn Nottage
- Director: Rose Riordan
- Dates: April 26-May 26, 2019 (Opens May 3)
- Where: Space Theatre
- Genre: Working-class drama
- Tickets: Start at $30 and can be purchased at denvercenter.org, 303-893-4100 or in person in the Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex at 14th and Curtis streets.
