Those interviews formed the backbone of “Sweat,” which opened at the Public Theater off-Broadway just a few days before the 2016 presidential election, then transferred to Broadway the following spring. Over the course of the next 2½ years, Nottage traveled to Reading often, speaking with a diverse array of residents. So how could a city that was thriving and so alive wither like a grape on the vine?” “For many years, Reading had welcomed immigrants from all over the world, and those immigrants could literally get off the bus and within an hour have a job. “I wanted to find a city that was a microcosm of what was happening to America as a whole,” Nottage says. Nottage’s quest eventually led her to Reading, Pa., which had been described in a 2011 news story as the poorest American city of its size - with 41.3 percent of its approximately 88,000 residents living in poverty. I had to actually go and find that story for myself.” “But I realized there’s a much bigger story that couldn’t be answered by the people sitting in the circle. “I lost my voice from shouting,” she says with a laugh.

At one point, she gave a fiery address to the assembled throng. As Nottage heard stories of financial hardship and critiques of the nation’s growing inequality, her anger rose. Not long after, Nottage took that friend to the Occupy Wall Street protests in Manhattan. It was an all-too-familiar story of economic anxiety and job loss that was playing out across the country in the wake of the recession and foreclosure crisis. “She had felt too embarrassed to share her predicament. I just need you guys to know what I’m going through,’ ” Nottage recalls in a recent conversation over breakfast at a cafe near her home in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, where she grew up. to me and a couple of other friends, saying, ‘I’m broke. The friend revealed to Nottage that she’d been out of work for a long time and was now struggling to make ends meet. Maybe the snakes will move further away.NEW YORK - In 2011, the playwright Lynn Nottage received a letter from a friend, a single mother of two who lived on her Brooklyn block, that crystallized the depth of the country’s crippling economic downturn and its effects on the middle class. Call the Mayor’s office at 305 883-5800 and ask them to either turn the speakers around or bring them to the edge of the Urban Development Boundary and stack them facing the Everglades. Is there something everyone could do? YES!! Call the Mayor of Hialeah, Steve Bovo, and renounce the noise.

“I said, I’m caller number 31, what do I win, in a bid to get a laugh, but there was a serious issue here.” I wanted her to say, “We’ll get over there and get them to turn it down” but she said it was coming from Hialeah. I was told there were 30 calls before me. Was it a giant hearing test?Īt 11:30 we decided to call the police and register a noise complaint. This is today’s ‘music’? I guess you can dance to it while holding your ears. We were wrong! Later that evening we heard the constant thump, thump, thump of what could have been a record skipping over and over with no-one close by to adjust the stylus. It started in the early evening for just a short time as a demonstration of how giant speakers hold up when too much sound is pushed through them. The Hialeah ordinance 2019-029 contains a condition requiring development order applicants, successors or assigns to provide a notice to buyers, lessee and renters of multifamily residential units (In the immediate area) informing them that the subject property is located near entertainment uses that “ could create light and noise.” They’re warning us of more noise! (It’s a 6-month try-out.)Īt about 11PM when most people think about sleepy time, the thump was back. Our municipal neighbor to the immediate north has instituted the “Factory Town Entertainment Sub-District Pilot Program.” which lately during an Art Basel associated satellite fair, has caused the residents of the eastern half of Miami springs to cover their ears for most of the night. With a constant westerly wind aiding the sound, they couldn’t sleep for the constant bass beat. We heard a report of the loud music from neighbors as far from Hialeah as the 600 block of Plover. This is happening during the Art Basel/Miami Beach cluster-thingy.

If you live in the extreme western portion of beautifully tree shaded Miami springs, you may not have heard the constant thump of drums and deep resonance of the bass in the sound which, in the eastern part of town has been breaching our eardrums until 5AM.

Factory town events