Suzan-Lori Parks
Encyclopedia
Suzan-Lori Parks is an African American playwright
and screenwriter
. She received the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant
in 2001, and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
for her play, Topdog/Underdog
.
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."
She eventually returned to the United States and graduated from The John Carroll School
in 1981. 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).
Parks noted in an interview that her name is spelled with a "Z" as the result of a misprint early in her career:
introduced Parks to Five Colleges
faculty member James Baldwin
. 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
. Parks also credited another Mount Holyoke professor, Leah Blatt Glasser
, with her success.
Parks' 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).
Parks' 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
).
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.
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, "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." Playwright MJ Halberstadt would repeat this experiment from December 2009 to December 2010, including Parks as a character in several of the plays.
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 fiction, 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.
Nominations:
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
. She received the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant
MacArthur Fellows Program
The MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship is an award given by the John D. and Catherine T...
in 2001, and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than the calendar year...
for her play, Topdog/Underdog
Topdog/Underdog
Topdog/Underdog is a play by Suzan-Lori Parks. Parks received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002 for the work.The play chronicles the adult lives of two African American brothers, Lincoln and Booth, as they cope with women, work, poverty, gambling, racism, and their troubled upbringings...
.
Early years
Parks was born in Fort Knox, Kentucky into a military family. She spent part of her childhood in GermanyGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
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."
She eventually returned to the United States and graduated from The John Carroll School
The John Carroll School
The John Carroll School, established in 1964, is a private, independent, college-preparatory, co-educational Catholic school for grades 9–12, located on in Bel Air, Maryland...
in 1981. She later attended and graduated from Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...
in 1985 with a B.A. in English and German literature (cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa).
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.
Career
Parks would credit the impact of Mount Holyoke on her career later in life. While she was an undergraduate, her Mount Holyoke English professor Mary McHenryMary McHenry
Mary Williamson McHenry is "credited with bringing African American literature to Mount Holyoke College," where she is Emeritus Professor of English. McHenry also introduced her then - student to Five Colleges faculty member James Baldwin during the 1980s...
introduced Parks to Five Colleges
Five Colleges (Massachusetts)
The Five Colleges comprises four liberal arts colleges and one university in the Connecticut River Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts, totaling approximately 28,000 students. The schools belong to a consortium called Five Colleges, Incorporated, established in 1965...
faculty member James Baldwin
James Baldwin (writer)
James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.Baldwin's essays, for instance "Notes of a Native Son" , explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th century America,...
. 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
Wendy Wasserstein
Wendy Wasserstein was an American playwright and an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University...
, a 1971 Mount Holyoke graduate who won the Pulitzer in 1989 for her play The Heidi Chronicles
The Heidi Chronicles
The Heidi Chronicles is a 1988 play by Wendy Wasserstein. The play won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.-Production history:A workshop production at Seattle Repertory Theatre was held in April 1988, directed by Daniel J. Sullivan....
. Parks also credited another Mount Holyoke professor, Leah Blatt Glasser
Leah Blatt Glasser
Leah Blatt Glasser is an American literary critic and Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman scholar at Mount Holyoke College. She is currently Dean of First-Year Studies & Lecturer in English at Mount Holyoke College. Her then - student would later credit Glasser with her success.-Background:Glasser...
, with her success.
Parks' first screenplay was for Spike Lee
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983....
's 1996 film, Girl 6. She later worked in conjunction with Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
's Harpo Productions
Harpo Productions
Harpo Productions, Inc. is an incorporated US-based multimedia production company founded by Oprah Winfrey . It also includes Harpo Films & Harpo Radio, Inc....
on screenplays for Their Eyes Were Watching God
Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005 television)
Their Eyes Were Watching God is an American Broadcasting Company television movie aired on March 6, 2005 at 9pm based upon Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel of the same name...
(2005) and the 2007 film, The Great Debaters
The Great Debaters
The Great Debaters is a 2007 American biopic period drama film directed by and starring two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington and produced by Oprah Winfrey and her production company, Harpo Productions...
(with Robert Eisele).
Parks' plays include Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World
The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World
The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World is a 1990 play by Suzan-Lori Parks.This play brings to life a menagerie of stereotypes of African Americans. The "last man" of the title is named Black Man With Watermelon. He dies multiple deaths over the course of the show...
, The America Play
The America Play
The America Play is a two-act play by Suzan-Lori Parks. It premiered at the Yale Repertory Theater in January 1994 The plot revolves around an unnamed African-American gravedigger who gains a measure of fame due to his uncanny resemblance to Abraham Lincoln...
(the opening scene of which inspired Topdog/Underdog
Topdog/Underdog
Topdog/Underdog is a play by Suzan-Lori Parks. Parks received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002 for the work.The play chronicles the adult lives of two African American brothers, Lincoln and Booth, as they cope with women, work, poverty, gambling, racism, and their troubled upbringings...
), Venus (about Saartjie Baartman
Saartjie Baartman
Sarah "Saartjie" Baartman was the most famous of at least two Khoikhoi women who were exhibited as freak show attractions in 19th century Europe under the name Hottentot Venus—"Hottentot" as the then-current name for the Khoi people, now considered an offensive term, and "Venus" in reference to...
), In The Blood
In The Blood
In The Blood is a play written by Suzan-Lori Parks which first premiered at The Joseph Papp Public Theatre on November 1999. Parks borrowed many aspects from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and wanted to create a play based on the novel. She originally wanted to call the play Fucking A,...
and Fucking A
Fucking a
Fucking A is a play written by American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. It was produced by DiverseWorks for Infernal Bridegroom Productions, and premiered at the DiverseWorks Artspace in Houston, Texas on February 24, 2000.-Background:...
(which are both a retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
's 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter is an 1850 romantic work of fiction in a historical setting, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is considered to be his magnum opus. Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an...
).
Her 2001 play, Topdog/Underdog
Topdog/Underdog
Topdog/Underdog is a play by Suzan-Lori Parks. Parks received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002 for the work.The play chronicles the adult lives of two African American brothers, Lincoln and Booth, as they cope with women, work, poverty, gambling, racism, and their troubled upbringings...
(a play about family identity, fraternal interdependence, and the struggles of everyday African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
life), won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than the calendar year...
in 2002.
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, "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." Playwright MJ Halberstadt would repeat this experiment from December 2009 to December 2010, including Parks as a character in several of the plays.
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 fiction, 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.
Plays
- The Sinner's Place (1984)
- Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (1989)
- Betting on the Dust Commander (1990)
- The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire WorldThe Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire WorldThe Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World is a 1990 play by Suzan-Lori Parks.This play brings to life a menagerie of stereotypes of African Americans. The "last man" of the title is named Black Man With Watermelon. He dies multiple deaths over the course of the show...
(1990) - Pickling (1990) (radio play)
- Third Kingdom (1990) (radio play)
- Locomotive (1991) (radio play)
- Devotees in the Garden of Love (1992)
- The America PlayThe America PlayThe America Play is a two-act play by Suzan-Lori Parks. It premiered at the Yale Repertory Theater in January 1994 The plot revolves around an unnamed African-American gravedigger who gains a measure of fame due to his uncanny resemblance to Abraham Lincoln...
(1994) - Venus (1996)
- In The Blood (1999)
- Fucking AFucking aFucking A is a play written by American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. It was produced by DiverseWorks for Infernal Bridegroom Productions, and premiered at the DiverseWorks Artspace in Houston, Texas on February 24, 2000.-Background:...
(2000) - Topdog/UnderdogTopdog/UnderdogTopdog/Underdog is a play by Suzan-Lori Parks. Parks received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002 for the work.The play chronicles the adult lives of two African American brothers, Lincoln and Booth, as they cope with women, work, poverty, gambling, racism, and their troubled upbringings...
(2001) - 365 Days/365 Plays (2006)
- Ray Charles Live! (2007)
- Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 8 & 9) (2009)
- The Book of Grace (2010)
- Porgy and Bess (2011) adaptation with Diedre L. Murray)
Screenplays
- Their Eyes Were Watching GodTheir Eyes Were Watching God (2005 television)Their Eyes Were Watching God is an American Broadcasting Company television movie aired on March 6, 2005 at 9pm based upon Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel of the same name...
(2005) - Girl 6 (1996)
Awards and nominations
Awards- 1990 Obie Award Best New American Play – Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom
- 1992 Whiting Writers' AwardWhiting Writers' AwardThe Whiting Writers' Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation and has been presented since 1985. As of 2007, winners receive US $50,000.-External links:**...
- 1995 Lila-Wallace Reader's Digest Award
- 1996 Obie Award for Playwriting – Venus
- 2000 Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
Playwriting - 2001 MacArthur Foundation "Genius" GrantMacArthur Fellows ProgramThe MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship is an award given by the John D. and Catherine T...
- 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama – Topdog/Underdog
- 2006 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts from the Council for the Arts
- 2007 Academy of Achievement Golden Plate AwardAcademy of AchievementThe Academy of Achievement is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization founded in 1961 by photographer Hy Peskin. He established the Academy of Achievement to bring aspiring young people together with accomplished people...
- 2008 NAACP Theatre AwardNAACP Theatre AwardsThe NAACP Theatre Awards is an award presented annually by the Beverly Hills-Hollywood branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to honor outstanding people of color in theatre....
- Ray Charles Live! A New Musical
Nominations:
- 2000 Pulitzer Prize Drama – In The Blood
- 2002 Drama Desk Award Outstanding New Play – Topdog/Underdog
- 2002 Tony Award for Best Play – Topdog/Underdog
External links
- Suzan-Lori Parks - Encyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaThe Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
- Voices from the Gaps Biography - University of MinnesotaUniversity of MinnesotaThe University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
- Women of Color Women of Words Biography - Rutgers UniversityRutgers UniversityRutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
- Suzan-Lori Parks '85 Visits MHC (March 2007)