DeKalb | NIU’s play “Intimate Apparel” focuses on love, emotion and even female empowerment.

The School of Theatre and Dance will put on the play “Intimate Apparel,” written by Lynn Nottage. The show runs Feb. 13 to 16 at the Diversions Lounge in the Holmes Student Center, Attendees can get tickets for $6 at the School of Theatre and Dance box office.

The play is set in 1905 in New York City and focuses on a seamstress named Esther Mills, a young girl who makes intimate apparel for clients throughout the city. Mills is played by junior theater-acting major Kylah Frye.

“What I think is unique about it is that you get to see a variety of people from the early 20th century,” Frye said “I know that I haven’t seen a lot of representations of black people or Jewish people from that time, so in this play you get to see a great variety of different types of people.”

Esther’s love interest is a character named George, played by senior acting major Carl Furlough. Furlough said George is the most difficult character that he has been challenged with.

“In a sense, I have to be two different people on stage…. In Act I, he is one person, and in Act II, the polar opposite,” Furlough said. “I’m not going to tell you exactly what, but you’ll see. You will love him one moment, and hate him the next. I think he is what most people find when they go to look for love.”

Kay Martinovich is a visiting assistant professor in Theatre and Dance, and she is normally a professional director at theaters in Chicago.

“I do not treat this any differently than a professional show,” Martinovich said. “Even though the students have class and other responsibilities we need to work around, I treat them and this show like any other I have done.”

This is Martinovich’s first experience with directing a university show. She has worked on professional shows in Chicago at the Gift Theatre and Trap Door Theatre.