By the time you sit down to watch this production of Sweat, the United States will have a new president. We will have moved forward into a new era politically but the cobwebs of the past and the dark shadows of the present remain. Now more than ever we need to remain curious. When did we start fighting for our own right to exist and stop listening to each other’s stories?

As I live in the rich landscape of Lynn Nottage’s world I’m thinking about this a lot. Framed and supported by the creativity, skill and craft of the crew, creatives and stage management team, I watch the actors beautifully and dutifully bring these people to life, their own lived experiences emerging as we sit in the complexity of what it means to be human. Sweat, although fraught with pain and yearning, is full of compassion and curiosity. I believe that’s what makes it brilliant. It’s rare that a writer will allow each and every character the space to reveal to the audience where their pain comes from and why they behave as they do, sometimes with grave consequences. It’s an important distinction to mark because it means that as we watch we are asked to challenge the boxes we put people in. Our biases recalibrate as we hear the strength and striving of a young black man’s ambitions, the white knuckle wounds of a white woman losing the legacy of her family, a young Columbian man’s grace as he explains why he needs a payrise, and why living as a Black woman in this world can sometimes feel like you’re walking through a pit of vipers.

Now more than ever we need to remain curious. I believe this is necessary in order for us move out of these dark times together, towards a clearer future.

There is never a time in the future where we will work out our salvation, the challenge is in the moment, the time is always now – James Baldwin