Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama "Sweat" gets a staged reading at the State Theater in downtown Olympia on Saturday, August 8, and Sunday, August 9, as part of Harlequin Productions' Bold Voices series.

The reading runs from 7 to 10 p.m. both nights at 202 4th Ave. E. Tickets are on sale through Harlequin Productions.

"Sweat" is set in a neighborhood bar in Reading, Pennsylvania, between 2000 and 2008. A group of longtime factory workers — friends across racial lines — watch their jobs disappear as layoffs hit and their employer threatens to move production to Mexico.

Friendships fracture. Long-held tensions erupt. Nottage, the first woman to win two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, spent more than two years interviewing real residents of Reading before writing the play.

The Pulitzer board in 2017 cited "Sweat" as "a nuanced yet powerful drama that reminds audiences of the stacked deck still facing workers searching for the American dream."

This is the second installment in Harlequin's Bold Voices Staged Reading Series for 2026. The first, Lucy Kirkwood's "The Children," ran April 18-19. The series fits within Harlequin's season theme, "Home/Land," which Producing Artistic Director Aaron Lamb described in the company's season announcement as exploring "how economic forces displace working-class people" and "how race exacerbates that divide."

"For thirty-five years, we've been gathering in this space, finding common ground through shared stories," Lamb said in that announcement. "In a world that feels increasingly divided, that tradition feels more important than ever."

Harlequin, now in its 35th year presenting theater in Olympia, follows the Bold Voices readings with its next mainstage production, Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park," opening Friday, August 21.