Lynn Nottage —the only woman to win two Pulitzer Prizes for drama — is arguably the nation’s most prolific living playwright, with plays that are routinely among the most produced nationwide and abroad each year.
The play that has topped the list for the most produced over the last few years is Clyde’s, a beloved,Tony-nominated comedy that follows a group of formerly incarcerated employees at a truck stop diner, and one man's quest for the perfect sandwich.
But what the world now knows as Clyde’s actually started as a 2014 Joyce Awards-winning commission with Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theater called Floyd’s. Following years of workshops, Floyd’s made its world premiere at the Guthrie in 2019. The show was an immediate hit. Guthrie Artistic Director Joseph Haj said it was a thrilling collaboration with Nottage (and longtime directing partner Kate Whoriskey), and that the award exemplified the best of philanthropy’s investment in artists of color and the development of their work.
“Our large not-for-profit institutions, when we’re doing things well, we’re mostly just doing two things: we’re providing resources to artists to make their best work and we’re removing obstacles that are in their way, whatever they might be, so that they can make the best work. So the process of working with Lynn was just so thrilling,” Haj said. “That project lives very richly in my own memory and will live richly for a long time in the Guthrie’s memory.”
By the time Floyd’s was ready to transfer to Broadway, George Floyd had been murdered in Minneapolis. Nottage, 60, quickly made the decision to change the show’s name, and Floyd’s became Clyde’s, lest audiences be misled into thinking the comedy was in any way associated with the shocking incident and the nationwide protests that followed.
In commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Joyce Awards, we spoke with Nottage about the legacy of Floyd’s and Clyde’s, the importance of awards programs like the Joyce Awards in developing new artistic works, and her advice for young playwrights.
The Joyce Foundation: How important was it to you to be able to develop Floyd’s/Clyde’s in the Midwest?
Lynn Nottage: I’m a New York-based theater artist so any opportunity that I get to make work or develop work outside of the city is really welcome. I get to work with a different set of artists and a very different audience. In New York, because it’s such a theater town, the way audiences react to the work is quite different from the rest of the country. I’m always surprised by the generosity of audiences in the Midwest and their willingness to sort of meet the work where it is.
I enjoy developing (new plays) outside of the intense scrutiny and spotlight that comes with making work in New York because there’s so much national media based there — you do a show, it’s immediately it’s broadcast throughout the country. Whereas In a place like Minneapolis you can really dig into the making of the work without having to think about its national reach yet. I appreciate having the space and the time to develop the work without a certain kind of intense critical eye that comes with being in New York. New York receives the bounty of work that is developed elsewhere.
JF: After so much time working on Floyd’s, was it a difficult decision to change the name of the show?
LN: No. Floyd’s premiered at the Guthrie the summer before George Floyd happened. After George Floyd was murdered we thought it might feel inappropriate for it to be called Floyd’s because it’s a comedy — we didn’t want people coming into the show with any expectation that it going to be a show about George Floyd or somehow connected to that incident. We had to change the title. It was as simple as that. At that point it was about finding a title that conjured the same feeling as the name “Floyd’s” but didn’t carry the baggage.
JF: What do award programs like the Joyce awards mean for artists of color trying to develop new works?
LN: The kind of grants that you get like this, for the development of the work, are perhaps the most important ones because it’s really an investment in possibility as opposed to rewarding something that has already happened. That moment as a playwright when you begin dreaming you think Is anyone going to invest in this dream? Is it going to be possible for me to find the resources to actually put this play up? It’s a moment in which you feel very vulnerable. So with these grants, it’s an affirmation. It’s about developing the work and investing in a diversity of voices and, as we know, it’s really hard right now, particularly for theater artists to find spaces to do their work because the entire industry is contracting. Many theaters are making decisions to go with work that is already established because they’re afraid of putting something new on the stage that may not be attractive to their audiences.
In working with Guthrie—we very specifically wanted to do a community engagement and find ways to bring new audiences to the theater, in particular because Floyd’s-now-Clyde’s is a play about formerly incarcerated people negotiating life after prison. We thought it would be wonderful to find a way to bring a formerly incarcerated audience into the theater space. Because it felt like a play that could be in dialogue with the traditional Guthrie audience but also with people who didn’t necessarily get to see theater on a regular basis.
JF: What are some other ways philanthropy in particular can support playwrights?
LN: I wish there were more grants that made the process of applying less onerous. There’s a couple of grants that are like ok, round one, round two, round three… and you write novels about the work you’re seeking support for, and then in round three they tell you oh we’re so sorry… It’s like, you know what? I could have been making my art in the time you had me sitting here writing the narrative for a grant you perhaps knew you weren’t going to give me. So, yes, I wish there was a way to streamline the process. I can remember sitting in my kitchen trying to muster the energy to apply for grants and awards — it can be exhausting.
JF: When you were sitting in your kitchen writing, did you ever imagine that this is what career would look like?
LN: The notion that you would make a living or in any way be famous (as a playwright) felt like a pipe dream. I did it because I loved what I was doing, I loved being in collaboration and telling stories. The happy byproduct has been all of the success, and the success has come because I’ve remained invested in the work, and invested in my own personal mission, which is to tell the stories of women from the African diaspora in ways that feel slightly different than the usual fare and I think that people over the years have responded to it.
Years ago I saw an interview with Whoopi Goldberg and she was asked where she wanted to be in 10 years and she said “ I want to be working.” That stuck with me. I thought “that’s my mission — my mission is to stay working.” Some people’s mission is to get famous — mine is to work.
JF: At one point you had three works out at the same time — Clyde’s, Intimate Apparel (Opera) and MJ: The Musical, for which you wrote the book. You work a lot!
LN: Well, we had that pause of a year and a half in which no theater was happening. I had all of these projects that were supposed to trickle out over the course of two years. But the world opened up again post-COVID, and suddenly I had three projects which were going to be done at the same, exact moment! I felt blessed to have the bounty but it was challenging to have to switch gears in a manner of minutes from the musical, to the play, to the opera. There was a moment (for six months) in which I worked every single day. At the end of it I was exhausted. But it was a beautiful moment. It felt like it was the apotheosis of all the things I had been striving for in my career, all converging at the same moment.
JF: What are you working on now?
LN: I’m working on a new collaboration of an opera with my daughter (Ruby Aiyo Gerber) called “This House” opening at Opera Theatre of St. Louis in 2025, and working on another opera with Ruby Aiyo and Carlos Simon for the Met at Lincoln Center.
JF: Any final words of inspiration for playwrights hoping to follow your trajectory?
LN: It’s such a difficult journey to be a playwright because unlike many other mediums you need so many people to build the final thing. It’s really important to find collaborators and allies and to understand that you don’t have to be on this path by yourself. Theater is really made by an army of people and playwriting is as much about building an army as it is about writing. Try and locate those people who share your vision and will be invested in your voice and hold their hands and take this journey together.
About The Joyce Foundation
Joyce is a nonpartisan, private foundation that invests in evidence-informed public policies and strategies to advance racial equity and economic mobility for the next generation in the Great Lakes region.