THE STORY: In CLYDE’S, a truck stop sandwich shop offers its formerly incarcerated kitchen staff a shot at redemption. Even as the shop’s callous owner tries to keep them down, the staff members learn to reclaim their lives, find purpose, and become inspired to dream by their shared quest to create the perfect sandwich.
“We are living in Greek times…The systems that control our lives—institutional racism, predatory capitalism, the prison-industrial complex—seem as powerful and implacable as gods. What can humans do about fate, [other] playwrights suggest, but submit to it and hope to preserve the story?…But Nottage’s delightful play, CLYDE’S…dares to flip the paradigm. Though it’s still about dark things, including prison, drugs, homelessness and poverty, it somehow turns them into bright comedy.” —The New York Times.
“At Clyde’s, sandwiches aren’t just convenient meals served at lunch and dinner; they tell stories, hold truths and nourish dreams…the drama blossoms into a poignant story about worker solidarity and the meaning of second chances, loaded with laugh-out-loud funny jokes.” —The Hollywood Reporter.
“…[a] flavor-bomb of a comedy about survival, second chances, and digesting whatever life serves up…a subversion of familiar genres, including drawing room comedy and workplace drama, and the value judgments conventionally inherent to them. By nature of her composition, Nottage also questions which sorts of rooms and people have previously been considered worthy of sustained attention.” —Variety.
