For two and a half years, playwright Lynn Nottage visited Reading, Pennsylvania (pronounced RED-ing) to sit down and listen to people’s stories. Drawn in by Reading’s designation as the poorest city in America for its size, Nottage spent weeks talking to business owners, public officials, police chiefs, social workers, and more. Under commission by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Nottage knew she wanted to write a play about how poverty and economic stagnation were shifting the American narrative, but she didn’t yet know what story she’d be telling as she made her way to Reading for the first time in 2012.
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