Last updated on February 5, 2024
The Footlight Club’s newest production Sweat tells the story of a group of friends who have spent their lives toiling together in a factory.
Opening this weekend, the play written by Lynn Nottage, is full of warm humor and tremendous heart. As coworkers do, they became friends by enjoying drinks together, sharing secrets and laughs.
“But when layoffs and picket lines begin to chip away at their trust, the friends find themselves pitted against each other in a heart-wrenching fight to stay afloat,” describes The Footlight Club’s website.
Sweat opens on Saturday, Feb. 10 at 8 pm, and plays Fridays and Saturday nights, as well as Sunday matinees at 2 pm through Feb. 24.
Get to know several of the cast members from The Footlight Club’s Facebook page:
Juliette McClendon debuted at the Footlight Club in A Man of No Importance, and returns to play Cynthia, a single mother who is determined move up from the line in the factory and make a better life for her son.
Q: What do you like most about playing your character?
McLendon: I love that my character is driven and ambitious, while also being kind and caring. She loves her friends and family and just wants to do her best for them, while also shooting for her dream.
Michael Nurse makes his Footlight Club debut with Sweat, but his acting pedigree is long, including roles in many films shot in Boston including Blown Away, Housesitter, Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, and The Departed. Here he plays Evan, a tough yet sympathetic parole officer.
Trevor St. Pierre made his Footlight Club debut back in early 2022 in THE DOLL’S HOUSE. Now he returns to play Chris, a young factory worker trying to forge a better life for himself.
Q: What do you like most about playing your character?
Nurse: That he is rock solid wise and prophetic.
Trevor St. Pierre made his Footlight Club debut in early 2022 in The Doll’s House. Now he returns to play Chris, a young factory worker trying to forge a better life for himself.
Q: What inspires you about creating theater?
St. Pierre: Challenge. It’s a challenge to produce and create theater. Developing a fully realized character, relating to them and sharing that with the audience is a challenge. Asking the audience to suspend their sense of reality, and to believe what they are seeing as real, and to make them feel something; that is the greatest challenge.
Courtney Breslin makes her Footlight Club debut to play Jessie, the gimlet-loving factory worker who frequents the local bar in Reading, PA.
Q: Which character do you most relate to?
Breslin: Honestly, I really relate most to Jessie. She mourns the person she never became and who among us can’t empathize with that in some way?
Bill Stambaugh returns to the Footlight Club to play, Stan, the bartender at the local bar in Reading, PA where the factory workers hang out.
Q: What is your favorite moment in Sweat and why?
Stambaugh: The moments that tend to revolve around more intimate realizations that some of the characters stumble upon within the difficult situations that they find themselves in. For me personally it’s the moments of introspection where Stan gets to give his own opinions on certain situations with the other characters lives, and what they’re going through.
Cast
Evan: Michael Nurse
Jason: Mikey Moses
Chris: Trevor St. Pierre
Stan: Bill Stambaugh
Oscar: Oscar Villeda Estrada
Tracey: Jaryn Wilcox
Cynthia: Juliette McClendon
Jessie: Courtney Breslin
Brucie: Reggie Joseph
Crew
Producer: Benn Salter
Assistant Producer: Amanda Bedford
Director: Michael Colford
Stage Managers: Coco Coviello and Christopher Nadeau
Technical Director: Paul O’Shaughnessy
Set Designer: Sara Schonour
Master Carpenter: Donnchadh “Gaf” Condon
Costumes: Audrey Stuck-Girard
Props Designer: Kathryn Schultz & Solon Perry
Set Dressing: David Alger
Lighting Designer: Sara Schonour
Sound Designer: Chris Brousseau
Sound Assistant & Board Operator: Tom Marsh
Makeup Designer: Rose Conley
Hair Designer: Jasmine Santos
Fight Choreographer: Shira Cahn-Lipman
Dramaturg: Nick Osborne
