Suzan-Lori Parks

Infobox Writer
name = Suzan-Lori Parks

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birthdate = 1964
birthplace = Fort Knox, Kentucky
deathdate =
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occupation =Playwright
nationality = United States
period =
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influences = James Baldwin
Leah Blatt Glasser
Mary McHenry
Wendy Wasserstein
influenced =
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Suzan-Lori Parks (born 1964)cite web| title=Norton Anthology of American Literature| publisher=Norton Books| url=http://www.nortonbooks.com/college/english/naal/vol_E/explorations.htm] is an award-winning American playwright and screenwriter. She was a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant in 2001, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002. She is married to blues musician Paul Oscher. [ [http://www.bmi.com/musicworld/entry/335031 Suzan-Lori Parks and Paul Oscher] ]

Background

Parks was born in Fort Knox, Kentucky into a military family. She spent part of her childhood in Germany and "attended German high school instead of the English speaking school for military children. The experience, in addition to teaching her the fundamentals of language, showed Parks what it feels like to be neither white nor black, but simply foreign." [ [http://www.cofc.edu/temples/parks.html Suzan-Lori Parks] ]

She eventually returned to the United States and graduated from The John Carroll School in 1981. cite news | title=Connections| pages=4| publisher=John Carroll School|date=Spring 2007|url=http://johncarroll.org/data/files/gallery/ParentFiles/April_2007_Connections.pdf] She later attended and graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1985 with a B.A. in English and German literature (cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa).cite web| title=Suzan-Lori Parks '85 Took Her Cue from Five College Professor James Baldwin| publisher =Mount Holyoke College| url =http://www.mtholyoke.edu/cic/about/reasons.shtml?num=5]

Parks noted in an interview that her name is spelled with a "Z" as the result of a misprint early in her career:

:When I was doing one of my first plays in the East Village, we had fliers printed up and they spelled my name wrong. I was devastated. But the director said, 'Just keep it, honey, and it will be fine.' And it was. [ [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=b&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/123373_moment26.html "A moment with Suzan-Lori Parks, playwright"] , "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer", May 26, 2003.]

Influences

Parks would credit the impact of Mount Holyoke on her career later in life. cite web| title =Suzan-Lori Parks '85 Wins Pulitzer Prize for Drama| publisher =College Street Journal| date =April 12, 2002| url =http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/csj/041202/parks.shtml] While she was an undergraduate, her Mount Holyoke English professor Mary McHenry introduced Parks to Five Colleges faculty member James Baldwin. cite web| title =Suzan-Lori Parks Interview| publisher =Academy of Achievement| date =June 22, 2007| url =http://www.achievement.com/autodoc/page/par1int-5] Parks began to take classes with Baldwin and, at his behest, began to write plays. Parks also noted that she was inspired by Wendy Wasserstein, a 1971 Mount Holyoke graduate who won the Pulitzer in 1989 for her play "The Heidi Chronicles". ...] . Finally, in addition to McHenry, Parks also credited another Mount Holyoke professor, Leah Blatt Glasser, with her success. cite web| title = In the News: Traditions and communications| publisher =College Street Journal| date =May 24, 1996| url =http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/csj/960524/news.html]

Career

creenwriter

As a screenwriter, Parks has worked with important figures in the American film industry. Her first screenplay was for Spike Lee's 1996 film, "Girl 6". She later worked in conjunction with Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions on screenplays for "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (2005) and the 2007 film, "The Great Debaters" (with Robert Eisele). [ [http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/847213.html 'Debaters' makes its case] ] [Harris, Dana and Brodesser, Claude (2004). [http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117911169.html "Back-to-back helming: Washington to take 2 gigs,"] "Variety" Sep. 29, 2004. Retrieved December 16, 2007.]

Playwright

Her plays include "Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom", "The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World", "The America Play" (the opening scene of which inspired "Topdog/Underdog"), "Venus" (about Saartjie Baartman), "In The Blood" and "Fucking A" (which are both a retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel "The Scarlet Letter").

From November 2002 to November 2003, Parks wrote a short play each day for a year. The result of this process is the "365 Days/365 Plays" series (featuring premieres of various of the 365 plays around the United States in 2006 and 2007). According to an article in the "New York Times", [Robertson, Campbell. "What do you get if you write a play a day? A lot of premieres." "New York Times", November 10, 2006.] "subject matter for the plays, most only a few pages long, ranges from deities to soldiers to what Ms. Parks saw out of her plane window."

Pulitzer Prize

Her 2001 play, "Topdog/Underdog" (a play about family identity, fraternal interdependence, and the struggles of everyday African American life), won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002.

Novelist

Parks is the author of the novel "Getting Mother's Body".

Other

Suzan-Lori Parks appeared on the [http://www.lastagealliance.org/images/issue34coverlarge.jpgcover of "LA STAGE] " in November 2006 (photograph by Eric Schwabel).

Works

Plays

* "RAY CHARLES LIVE! - A New Musical" (2007)
* "365 Days/365 Plays" (2006)
* "Topdog/Underdog" (2001)
* "Fucking A" (2000)
* "In The Blood" (1999)
* "Venus" (1996)
* "The America Play" (1994)
* "Devotees in the Garden of Love" (1992)
* "The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World" (1990)
* "Betting on the Dust Commander" (1990)
* "Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom" (1989)
* "The Sinner's Place" (1984)

Collections

*"Red Letter Plays" ("Fucking A" and "In The Blood"), 2000
*"The America Play and Other Works" ("The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World", "Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom", "The America Play", "Betting on the Dust Commander", "Pickling ", and "Devotees in the Garden of Love"), 1994

Plays for radio

*"Locomotive" (1991)
*"Third Kingdom" (1990)
*"Pickling " (1990)

creenplays/teleplays

*"The Great Debaters" (2007)
*"Their Eyes Were Watching God" (2005)
*"Girl 6" (1996)

Books

*"" (2003)

Essays and speeches

*" [http://www.oprah.com/rys/omag/rys_omag_200305_aha.jhtml Suzan-Lori Parks's Aha! Moment] " - "oprah.com"
*" [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/oped/loriparks.shtml Suzan-Lori Parks Commencement Speech to the Mount Holyoke College Class of 2001 Held on May 27, 2001] "

Works About

In the Fall of 2008, the University of Michigan Press published a guide to Parks's dramatic works, taking a close look at her major plays and placing them in context. Titled [Suzan-Lori Parks] [http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=187338] , it is part of the Michigan Modern Dramatists series and called by the Publisher "An Accessible guide to the inventive language and experimental stagings of playwright Suzan Lori-Parks". The author, Deborah R. Geis, traces the evolution of Parks's art from her earliest experimental pieces to the hugely popular Topdog/Underdog to her wide-ranging forays into ficiton, music, and film. This is the latest and one of the few guides to the work of one of America's most prolific and distinctive playwrights.

Awards

"Winner:"
* 2006 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts from the Council for the Arts at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
* 2002 Pulitzer Prize Drama for "Topdog/Underdog"
* 2001 MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant
* 2000 Guggenheim Fellowship Playwriting
* 1995 - 1996 Obie Award Playwriting: "Venus"
* 1995 Lila-Wallace Reader's Digest Award.
* 1992 Whiting Writers' Award
* 1989 - 1990 Obie Award Best New American Play: "Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom"

"Nominations:"
* 2000 Pulitzer Prize Drama for "In The Blood"

Notes

References

*Als, Hilton. [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061030fa_fact2 "The Show-Woman: Suzan-Lori Parks’s Idea for the Largest Theatre Collaboration Ever] , "The New Yorker" magazine, October 30, 2006.
*Baym, Nina (ed.) "Suzan-Lori Parks." In "The Norton Anthology of American Literature", 6th edition, Vol. E. New York, W.W. Norton and Co., 2003: 2606-2607.
*Collins, Ken and Victor Wishna. "Suzan-Lori Parks." In [http://www.intheircompany.com "In Their Company: Portraits of American Playwrights"] . New York: Umbrage Editions, 2006: 186-189.
*NPR interviews. " [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6480604 Suzan-Lori Parks] ".

External links

"Biographies":
* [http://www.press.umich.edu/titleDetailDesc.do?id=187338] - "Suzan-Lori Parks by Deborah R. Geis"
* [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9399764/Suzan-Lori-Parks#807419.hook Suzan-Lori Parks] - "Encyclopedia Britannica"
* [http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/Bios/entries/parks_suzan-lori.html Voices from the Gaps Biography] - University of Minnesota
* [http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/%7Ecybers/parks2.html Women of Color Women of Words Biography] - Rutgers University
* [http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=93779 Suzan-Lori Parks] at the [http://www.ibdb.com/ Internet Broadway Database]
*imdb name | id=0663016 | name=Suzan-Lori Parks

"Photos":
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/mhc/sets/72157594575961985/ Suzan-Lori Parks '85 Visits MHC] (March 2007)