Review: Intimate Apparel

Lucinda Davis and Quincy Armorer (photo credit: lucetg.com)

The Unchangeable Past

Centaur has a dynamite cast for the Apparel

by Sarah Deshaies

Who hasn't tried to envision what their forebears' past might have been?

Playwright Lynn Nottage concocted Intimate Apparel out of a desire to know more about her great-grandmother, Ethel Boyce, according to dramaturge Caitlin Murphy in the informative playbill. Ethel was a religious woman, a Black immigrant who made her way from Barbados to Ellis Island in 1911, at a time when many were converging on New York City to create new lives for themselves.

The Sunday Read: First-Person - Ranee Lee on the life journey to Intimate Apparel

The Soul has many motions, the body one

by Ranee Lee

“I Learn by going where I have to go” to quote Theodore Roethke the poet. The lessons of my profession have brought me to where I am today, and this unpredictable expedition continues to unfold with every new experience. I have never thought of myself as more than a career woman in the arts. I am driven by the pursuit and successful outcome of a particular project whether in a solo or ensemble arena. The imperatives are at times wrapped in frustration and other times in accomplishment. This is not new news to any artist and performer, but it is the motivational tool to persist. As a child growing up in New York, my mother taught me that obstacles were made to be analyzed, and prevail over, that consequences are the results of actions and in everything there is a lesson. Sometimes we get it right the first time, other times the lesson comes in portions we must work through, but determination is a key to many doors.