In one of the poorest cities in America – Reading, Pennsylvania – a group of factory workers struggle to keep their present lives in balance, ignorant of the financial devastation looming in their near future. Based on the playwright's extensive interviews with residents of Reading, Lynn Nottage's play Sweat is a tale of friends pitted against each other by big business, and a topical reflection of the present and poignant decline of the American Dream. The play premiered in Oregon in 2015, before being produced at the Public Theater, New York, in 2016, and the following year on Broadway, where it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It won the 2016 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and received its UK premiere at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in 2018, directed by Lynette Linton. It went on to win Best Play at the 2019 Evening Standard Theatre Awards.