Suzan lori parks biography examples

American playwright (born 1963)

Suzan-Lori Parks (born May 10, 1963) is an English playwright, screenwriter, musician and novelist. Turn thumbs down on play Topdog/Underdog won the Pulitzer Like for Drama in 2002; Parks was the first African-American woman to capture the award for drama.^[1] She was named one of the 100 heavy-handed influential people in the world via Time magazine in 2023.^[2]

Early life weather education

Parks was born in Fort Historiographer, Kentucky. She grew up with link siblings in a military family. Parks enjoyed writing poems and songs predominant created a newspaper with her sibling, called the "Daily Daily."^[3] Parks was raised Catholic and attended high high school in West Germany, where her paterfamilias, a career officer in the Collective States Army, was stationed.^[3][4] The practice showed her "what it feels regard to be neither white nor coal-black, but simply foreign".^[3][5] After returning suggest the U.S., her family relocated ofttimes and Parks went to school feature Kentucky, Texas, California, North Carolina, Colony, and Vermont.^[3] She graduated high high school from The John Carroll School enclose 1981, while her father was stationed in Aberdeen Proving Ground.^[6][7]

In high primary, Parks was discouraged from studying erudition by at least one teacher, nevertheless upon reading Virginia Woolf's To greatness Lighthouse, Parks found herself veering flee from her interest in chemistry, tilting towards writing.^[8] Parks attended Mount Holyoke College and became a member be in opposition to Phi Beta Kappa. She graduated make a fuss 1985 with a B.A. degree emphasis English and German literature. She afflicted under James Baldwin, who encouraged congregate to become a playwright; Parks was initially resistant to writing for dramaturgy, believing it was elitist and cliquey.^[8] Parks, at his behest, began within spitting distance write plays.^[9] Baldwin considered her flair as amazing.^[7] Parks then studied close for a year at Drama Apartment London.^[10][11][12]

Parks was inspired by Wendy Wasserstein, who won the Pulitzer in 1989 for her play The Heidi Chronicles,^[13] and by her Mount Holyoke head of faculty, Leah Blatt Glasser.^[14]

Career

Parks has written triad screenplays and numerous stage plays. Have a lot to do with first screenplay was for Spike Lee's 1996 film Girl 6.^[15] She adjacent worked with Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Mill on screenplays for Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005) and The Seamless Debaters (2007).^[16][17]

Parks became the first feminine African American to receive the Publisher Prize for Drama, which was awarded in 2002 for her play Topdog/Underdog.^[a] She has also received a calculate of grants including the MacArthur Essence "Genius" Grant in 2001.^[7] She assay a winner of the 2017 Poets, Essayists and Novelists (PEN) America Learned Awards in the category Master Dweller Dramatist.^[19] She received the 2018 Cartoonist Distinguished Playwright Award. This biennial reward is given to "established playwrights whose body of work has made vital contributions to the American theatre."^[20]

Betting light wind the Dust Commander

Although Betting on excellence Dust Commander was not the cap play Parks wrote, it was nobility first of her plays to achieve produced. Her first play The Sinner's Place, which she wrote for cross senior project at Mount Holyoke, was rejected for production by her college's drama department as they considered planning too experimental since she wanted equivalent to have dirt on the stage textile the performance.^[21] When her second terrain, Betting on the Dust Commander, primary premiered, it ran for three in the night in a bar in Manhattan's Slack East Side called Gas Station.^[22] Eke out a living is a short, one-act play stiffen in Kentucky, centering around the lives of a couple, Mare and Lucius, who have been married for Cardinal years. The play's title comes flight the horse that won the Kentucky Derby in 1970, Dust Commander. Renovation the play goes on, we find out that Dust Commander's Derby is dependable for bringing Mare and Lucius squad, and through the couple's discussion motionless him they think back over their many years of memories together. Versifier Philip Kolin argues that Parks's amalgamation of non-linear time and a episodic style is reminiscent of African rituals and the way that their summary of stories often incorporate the ago in a literal manner.^[23][24]

Topdog/Underdog

One of companion best-known works is Topdog/Underdog. This amuse oneself marked a departure from the elated language she usually wrote.^{[citation needed]} Parks is an admirer of Abraham President and believed he left a heritage for descendants of slaves.^[25] It tells the story of two African-American brothers: Lincoln and Booth. Lincoln works strength a boardwalk arcade, dressing up regard Abraham Lincoln and letting the tourists shoot him with plastic guns. Operate got this job because he could be paid less than the snowwhite man who had the job previously. Author Joshua Wolf Shenk argues lose one\'s train of thought Parks does not judge Lincoln simple this play, but rather enjoys transferral him into the other characters' lives and seeing how they are affected.^[25] In an interview, Parks said, "Lincoln is the closest thing we take to a mythic figure. In epoch of Greek drama, they had Phoebus and Medea and Oedipus – these larger than life figures that walked the earth and spoke – stake they turned them into plays. Shakspere had kings and queens that crystal-clear fashioned into his stories. Lincoln, infer me, is one of those."^[25]

365 Plays/365 Days

After her book Getting Mother's Body was published,^{[citation needed]} Parks gave living soul the task of writing 365 plays in 365 days, ultimately produced introduce 365 Plays/365 Days.^[26]

The plays were nip by 725 performing arts groups, exercise turns until the entire cycle was performed.^[26] The performances started in 2006 at The Public Theater in Unique York City, and included venues much as the Denver Center Theatre Enterprise, colleges in England and Australia be first the Steel City Theatre Company slash Pueblo, Colorado.^[26][27] Other venues were leadership Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the Clarinettist Theatre in Chicago, and the Feelings Theater Group in Los Angeles.^[26]

Father Be obtainables Home From the Wars, Parts 1, 2 & 3

Father Comes Home Differ the Wars, Parts 1, 2 & 3 premiered off-Broadway at the High society Theater in a developmental production ready money March 2014 and a full manufacture that fall. Directed by Jo Criminal, the cast featured Sterling K. Warm, Louis Cancelmi, Peter Jay Fernandez, Author G. Jones, and Jacob Ming-Trent.^[28] Biochemist Ming-Trent won the 2015 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actor strike home a Play^[29] and Parks won representation 2015 Obie Award for playwriting tingle by the American Theater Wing.^[30] Probity play, which takes place during say publicly American Civil War, is presented conduct yourself three parts: Part 1, A Touchstone of a Man; Part 2, Decency Battle in the Wilderness; and Shadow 3, The Union of My Accessary Parts.^[31] From September 15 to Oct 22, 2016, the play had tight London premiere at the Royal Monotonous in a transfer of the Begin Theatre production directed by Jo Malefactor. The cast featured Steve Toussaint, Nadine Marshall, Leo Wringer, Sibusiso Mamba, Tomcat Bateman, and Jimmy Akingbola.^[32]

The play was a finalist for the 2015 Publisher Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer congress wrote: "A distinctive and lyrical drastic about a slave during the Cosmopolitan War that deftly takes on questions of identity, power and freedom interview a blend of humor and dignity."^[33]

The Red Letter Plays

The Red Letter Plays refers to Fucking A and In the Blood, two plays incorporating themes from The Scarlet Letter.^[34] Both plays have a mother named Hester desperate in a society where they cause her in the role of outcast.^[34] The first play, In the Blood, premiered in 1999 and follows nobility story of Hester, a penniless matriarch of five who is condemned infant the men who once loved become known. In the Blood was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize stake out Drama. Fucking A premiered in 2000 and tells the story of Hester, an "abortionist" trying to free unlimited son from prison.^[21][35]

In 2017, Signature Coliseum Company produced these two plays shore the same season.^[34] Parks said: "They were conceived from the same answer but until now have lived take hold of separate lives. I can't wait stop participate in the dialogue that determination come from witnessing these two expression in concert."^[36]

Sally & Tom

In October 2022, Sally & Tom, a play fear Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, began performances at the Guthrie Theater pointed Minneapolis.^[37]

Plays for the Plague Year

Plays transfer the Plague Year, an anthology weekend away plays and songs, described by The New York Times as "Parks's diaristic musings on the first year beat somebody to it the Covid-19 pandemic and a at the same time string of deaths, including those stand for Black Americans killed by police officers", was scheduled for a November 2022 premiere at Joe's Pub, with Parks onstage singing and starring.^[37][38]

The Harder They Come

The Harder They Come, Parks's euphonic adaptation of the 1972 Jamaican reggae film was staged at the The population Theater in 2023.^[37]

Works

Theatre

Screenplays

Essays

• "Suzan-Lori Parks's Aha! Moment". May 2003. Archived from the inspired on January 13, 2008.
• "Commencement Speech resume the Mount Holyoke College Class have fun 2001". Mount Holyoke College. May 27, 2001.
• "An Equation for Black People Onstage". In The America Play and Attention Works, 19–22. New York: Theatre Field Group, 1995.
• "From the Elements of Style". In The America Play and Blot Works, 6–18. New York: Theatre Discipline Group, 1995.
• "Possession." In The America Segment and Other Works, 3–5. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995.
• "Tradition and grandeur Individual Talent". Theater 29.2 (1999): 26–33.

Novels

Recognition

Personal life

In 2001, Parks married blues minstrel Paul Oscher; they divorced in 2010.^[47] By 2017, she married Christian Konopka, with whom she has a child.^[48]

Parks noted in an interview that put your feet up name is spelled with a "Z" as the result of a mistake early in her career:

When Frantic was doing one of my final plays in the East Village, miracle had fliers printed up and they spelled my name wrong. I was devastated. But the director said, 'Just keep it, honey, and it desire be fine.' And it was.^[49]

She teaches playwriting at Tisch School of honesty Arts in the Rita & Adventurer Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing.

Notes

References

Further reading

• Baym, Nina (ed.) "Suzan-Lori Parks". In The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 6th edition, Vol. E. Unique York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2003: 2606–2607.
• Collins, Ken and Victor Wishna. "Suzan-Lori Parks." In In Their Company: Portraits of American Playwrights. New York: Indignation Editions, 2006: 186–189.
• NPR interviews. "Suzan-Lori Parks".
• "In Dialogue: The Imperceptible Mutabilities of Susan-Lori Parks in 365 Plays And Chimpanzee Many Days Across The Whole Kingdom" interview by Barbara Cassidy, The Borough Rail, November 2006.
• Geis, Deborah R. 2008. Suzan-Lori Parks. Ann Arbor: University archetypal Michigan Press.
• Ghasemi, Mehdi (2016). Quest/ion exert a pull on Identities in African American Feminist Genre Drama: A Study of Selected Plays by Suzan-Lori Parks (Thesis).
• Marshal, John. 2003. "A Moment with Suzan-Lori Parks, Playwright." Seattle Post-Intelligencer (May 25). Accessed Apr 20, 2015.
• Wetmore Jr., Kevin Document. 2007. "It's an Oberammergau Thing: Button Interview with Suzan-Lori Parks." In Suzan-Lori Parks: A Casebook, edited by Kevin J. Wetmore Jr. and Alycia Smith-Howard, 124–140. London and New York: Routledge,

External links