INTIMATE APPAREL was three weeks into previews before the performing arts shutdown in March 2020. The show had been bringing audiences to their feet nightly, cheering for the moving performances and for the joy of hearing Lynn Nottage’s story and Ricky Ian Gordon’s music in the intimate Newhouse. Now, Lincoln Center Theater is delighted that INTIMATE APPAREL will return this winter to continue its run!

Directed by Resident Director Bartlett Sher, the show is part of The Met/LCT Opera/Musical Theater Commissioning Program, and it is the first opera to be done at LCT.

INTIMATE APPAREL, set in 1905 in turn of the century New York, tells the story of Esther, a lonely, single African-American woman who makes her living sewing beautiful corsets and ladies’ undergarments. There is warm affection between her and the Orthodox Jewish man who sells fabrics to her, but any relationship between them, even a touch, is completely forbidden. Seeking love and romance, Esther eventually embarks on a letter-writing relationship with a mysterious suitor laboring on the Panama Canal. When he moves to New York they embark on an unhappy marriage, leading Esther to realize that only her self-reliance and certainty of her own worth will see her through life’s challenges.