WATCH: Exclusive Preview of Intimate Apparel Live Capture

WATCH: Exclusive Preview of Intimate Apparel Live Capture

The Lincoln Center Theater production of "Intimate Apparel" will stream through PBS on September 23rd - and today, PBS shared an exclusive clip from the upcoming live capture.

Filmed live in performance earlier this year, the Bartlett Sher-directed production will be broadcast on as PBS' Great Performances later this month and will be available to stream for free as well. "Intimate Apparel" features music by Ricky Ian Gordon, and a libretto by Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage based on her play.

Here's the new Intimate Apparel preview shared by PBS, and more details on the filmed capture:

 



 

It is Manhattan of 1905, and Esther (Kearstin Piper Brown), an African American seamstress who makes elaborate corsets and ladies’ underclothing, develops a relationship with a mysterious man from Panama Canal through letter-writing. Esther eventually marries the man, but soon discovers the relationship is not what she expected.

Through this complex relationship, her friendships with her clients, and an Orthodox Jewish man who sells textiles to her, Esther comes to the conclusion that only her self-reliance will see her through life’s challenges.

The live capture of Intimate Apparel will air on PBS Friday, September 23 at 9 PM ET. The film will also be available to stream through PBS for 30 days on the same date, for free. It will later become available through PBS' Paywall.

 


 

The opera is sung in English and was filmed live at Lincoln Center Theater’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater. The cast featured in the recording includes Justin Austin (George Armstrong), Adrienne Danrich (Mrs. Dickson), Arnold Livingston Geis (Mr. Marks), Naomi Louisa O’Connell (Mrs. Van Buren), and Krysty Swann (Mayme).

In his Critic's Pick review for The New York Times, Jesse Green said: "Intimate Apparel — even more as an opera than as a play — is an act of rescue. When Esther tells Mrs. Van Buren, as they write the first letter to George, “My life ain’t really worthy of words,” she means that she isn’t special enough to be made permanent on paper. That isn’t true; as Nottage and now Gordon have shown, she is worthy of even more. She is worthy of music that is finally worthy of her."