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The birth of Suzan-Lori Parks
Suzan-Lori Parks was born on May 10, 1963 in Fort Knox, KY to Donald and Francis McMillian Parks. -
Early Life
An early love for stories from mythology and folklore made Parks dream of becoming a writer, but after her high school teacher dissuaded her, she turned her focus to science. -
Picking up writing again
She entered Mount Holyoke College where she rediscovered her love for poetry and prose, and switched her major from chemistry to English and German literature. In college, Parks studied fiction writing under acclaimed writer James Baldwin. -
Studying to become playwright
Parks sought further theater education in order to improve as a playwright. She studied acting at the Drama Studio London and cleaned the school at night in order to support herself. -
First production
Her first produced play was the one-act Betting on the Dust Commander. It debuted at The Gas Station, a bar frequented in Manhattan’s Lower East The production was so primary that Parks ran the lighting cues, which consisted of plugging and unplugging an extension cord. The play ran for three nights and Parks’s family made up most of the audience. -
Parks’s first full-length play
Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom premiered at the Brooklyn Arts and Culture Association in 1989. The play offers scenes about African-American life in the United States dating back to slavery, all linked by metaphors drawn from the natural sciences. I -
Critical Success
Right away mperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom was met with critical success and won Off-Broadway's Obie Award for Best New American Play. The New York Times deemed Parks “the year's most promising new playwright." -
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Continued Success
Parks continued writing at a prolific pace. She penned the screenplays for the films Anemone such as Me (1990) and Girl 6 (1996), the latter of which was directed by Spike Lee. In between, she wrote The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (1992), Devotees in the Garden of Love (1992), and The America Play (1994). -
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Publishing a Book
In the lead-up to the Broadway opening of Topdog/Underdog, Parks finished her first novel, Getting Mother’s Body. An experimental retelling of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying -
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Making History
Parks was awarded the esteemed “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation. The following year, she made history when Topdog/Underdog earned the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. She was the first African-American woman to win the award. -
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Married Life
In 2001 Parkes married Paul Oscher who was an American blues singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist. However they got divorced in 2010, but then got remarried to Christian Konopka in 2017 -
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Achievements
Parks received the coveted “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation. Topdog/Underdog was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama -
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The main Themes of Topdog/Underdog
Masculinity, sexuality, and violence are the main points in Topdog/Underdog. Although both brothers speak about their sexual conquests in chauvinistic terms, Booth especially clings to inflated ideas of his own sexual prowess, allowing it to define his sense of manhood. -
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Most Notable Play
Parks’s most acclaimed play, Topdog/Underdog, is about African-American brothers Lincoln and Booth. Lincoln, who works as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator in whiteface and is staying with Booth after his wife kicked him out of their home. Both men are struggling to cope amid poverty and racism and the tensions deepen as Lincoln overstays his welcome. -
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Summary of The Play
Topdog/Underdog is less fantastic than some of Parks's other plays. Though the set design evokes social realism, the play is naturalistic in the sense that Lincoln and Booth respond to the environmental forces, such as poverty, that shape their lives external -
Overview of 365 Days/365
365 Days/365 is a collection of 365 pieces each with its own distinctive characters and dramatic power. "One Act"
refers to a presentation of 30 or fewer plays from the collection. -
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Writing Her Shortest Play
Parkes set a seemingly-impossible task for herself: to write a new short play every day for a year. She stuck to it, writing in hotels and airports while on her book tour. The result was 365 Plays/365 Days (2006) – a yearlong, nationwide staging of the short plays in nearly 700 theaters around the world -
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Suzan-Lori Parks Now
Parks was on set as the writer for a TV show that had to go on hiatus when COVID hit. So she just started writing a short play a day that would eventually become Plays for the Plague Year. -
Inspiration for Plays for the Plague Year
she didn't really know when to stop until someone close to her died of covid. The brisk plays touch on the routine pains of everyday pandemic life, But each one is also a reminder of the stuff that's down deep in your gut even as the world endures these massive changes. -
Summary of Plays for the Plague Year
Plays for the Plague Year is a personal story of one family's daily lives, as well as a city, a nation, and a global community. Going through a pandemic and learning to deal with grief.