Actress Teri Lee Thomas Talks ‘Sweat’ at Harlequin Productions
Originally published August 3, 2026
Last year, I had the honor of introducing JOLT audiences to Washington Actress Teri Lee Thomas, who Thurston County locals might recognize from numerous shows at Harlequin Productions (HQP) over the years [read that article here].
Teri Lee Thomas is back in town for HQP’s Bold Voices reading of Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Sweat. HQP’s Sweat is running THIS WEEKEND only, with shows on August 8th at 7:30 pm and August 9th at 2 pm. Trust me, this is a show you will not want to miss. Hurry and get your tickets now!
I am so grateful that Thomas took time out of her busy schedule to discuss this project with me. I hope you enjoy our conversation!
On Sweat
Thomas: “Sweat is a part of the Bold Voices reading series at Harlequin. For an actor, doing a reading is very, very different than doing a full production. It’s more of an oral experience where the audience comes to hear the play, and we as artists are not encumbered by [all the staging and technical elements]. What you are hearing and experiencing is the pure words on the page from the playwright and the pure impulses of the actors.”
“We only have four rehearsals, which is really short. We have our own time with the script, and we are not memorized, but we are very, very familiar with it. In many cases, the scripts just disappear, and we are not even aware that we are referring to them. Like Reader’s Theater, we are presenting the story, the characters, and the world by describing for you what the stage would look like, what the entrances and exits would be like, and what the stage directions are like.”
“I’ve done readings for years, and I think one thing it asks of an audience member is to listen more intently and use your imagination more intently because we are not handing it all to you on a platter…it’s very pure. Here is a Pulitzer-winning script, here are really good actors, and here is a really good story for you to engage with in a different way. ”
Benton: I was so tempted to say “Bon Appétit” after that because it all sounds so luxurious in its own way, a privilege, a meal for the ears. It’s so interesting to think about this tradition of oral storytelling that has been around since the beginning of time. Oral storytelling traditions like Reader’s Theater, old radio broadcasts, and audiobooks. It’s so interesting to think that the trend of listening to someone tell us a story has never gone away, and I think it is the very thing that makes us human. I think we need to be told stories in this way.
Thomas: Yes! Theater fully produced is great, but this is just sort of another way to do it. It’s done in a way that asks the audience to step forward, listen, and experience it in a different way. Certain plays lend themselves to reading better than others.
Benton: Earlier, you were telling me about the kind of direction you receive with a reading versus a full production. Would it be appropriate to think of the director in this case as more of a conductor?
Thomas: “Yes, it’s more about tempo and rhythm. It’s more about refining it to the simplest elements that we need to tell the story, and less about corralling all the thousands of other details they usually have to corral.”
Benton: I’m curious about what it is about Sweat specifically that intrigues you?
Thomas: “This is a Pulitzer Prize-winning classic American big story told very intimately through nine characters. It’s about race, class, blue-collar work, labor and unions, and what happens when work goes away. What happens to friendships when race and economic disparity start to happen. It’s a very challenging play.”
Benton: It sounds very challenging too because of how relevant it is now. When was this play written?
Thomas: “It was originally co-commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, OR, and the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. Those two theaters co-commissioned writer Lynn Nottage to write it for Oregon Shakespeare’s American History Series. She spent years researching and writing it, and it premiered in 2015."
“It is set in America in 2000 and 2008, when the stock market crashed. You see the characters in these two time periods, and some terrible incidents occur between them. The setting is largely at a bar that these characters frequent. It’s their workers’ watering hole bar; they all know each other. You see them all before and after NAFTA, when factories got closed down, workers lost jobs, and unions were getting busted. Some people survive that, and some people don’t. The economy tanks, and what happens to those relationships when that happens. It’s a story that still happens today. It’s a very American story that all Americans will recognize.”
“Think about the jobs that people spend their life anticipating they will do, and there is a shift, and it’s gone. The play is also about people and their relationship with economic security. About ‘who are you with your job?’ and ‘when the job goes away, who do you become?’ Some people survive that better than others. In this play, we see addiction, trauma, violence erupt, and racial tensions play out even amongst friends and family. It’s a story that explains where we are now, about some of the divisions in our country. The fears about immigrants and jobs, fears of privileged white America losing jobs, that sense of entitlement they may have.”
“This play has been called ‘a play about the American Dream deferred’…the American Dream for people who can’t [access] the American Dream.”