About the Play:

Clyde's is a full-length comedy by Lynn Nottage. Centering around the formerly incarcerated kitchen staff at a truck stop sandwich shop, Clyde's is a story about living with and through your mistakes – and the importance of a shared dream in bringing people together; like the quest for creating the perfect sandwich. From two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage, this Tony-nominated hit is full of laughs and insights into what it means to find your purpose.

Clyde's serves up the story of ordinary characters with big dreams. No one would accuse the titular character Clyde of having a soft heart: Sure she hires former convicts for the greasy kitchen of her truck-stop sandwich joint, but she knows what they owe her and holds that power tight. Looking to start their lives over in the kitchen, her line cooks might be stuck, but their hopes haven't flickered out yet. Fed by tentative connections and a fierce competition to create the perfect sandwich, the chefs imagine a future they have been constantly told is out of reach. Deeply felt, quirky, and urgent, Clyde's is a play that reminds us that "sometimes a hero is more than just a sandwich" (New York Times).

Clyde's originally premiered in 2019 at the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis under the title Floyd's, but both the play and its titular sandwich shop proprietor were renamed after George Floyd was killed by a police officer in that same city the following year. The play opened in 2021 at the Hayes Theater on Broadway and ran for over a year. It was one of three productions that Lynn Nottage had on Broadway at the time. It received its European premiere in 2023 at the Donmar Warehouse in London. Since then the play had regional premieres at professional theatres across the US, becoming the most-produced play nationwide in the 2022-23 season.

Cast: 2 female, 3 male

What people say:

"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." — 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." — 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

"Clyde's is a genuinely funny and deeply emotional exploration of radical imagination, restorative justice, and the healing power of food." — Bon Appetit

"Fast-paced & uproariously funny, Clyde's is a spicy feast for the senses." — Chicago Sun Times

About the Playwright:

Lynn Nottage is an African-American playwright and screenwriter whose work often deals with the lives of African Americans and women. She is a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, and is also an Associate Professor in the Theatre Department at Columbia School of the Arts. Her plays have been produced widely in the United States and throughout the world. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Ruined and for Sweat, making her the first woman to win the prestigious award twice.