| "One of my tasks as a playwright is to locate the | | | | she borrowed from jazz and poetry. Music and |
| ancestral burial grounds, dig for bones, find bones, | | | | language have an ongoing presence in Park's |
| hear the bones sing, write it down." | | | | theatrical world. She uses language to |
| --Suzan-Lori Parks | | | | demonstrate naturalistic speech, and exploits the |
| The above quote, by one of the best | | | | rhythmic and musical sounds of words. |
| contemporary playwrights still writing today, best | | | | In contrast, she does not try to incorporate |
| describes the raw and unapologetic style in which | | | | hidden meaning or metaphor into her work. She |
| Parks writes her plays. Known mostly for her | | | | discourages her audience from looking past the |
| urban-placed stories about the African-American | | | | words and actions that appear on stage. "If you |
| community, Parks is renowned for writing about | | | | want to send a message," she says, "go to |
| life in the ghetto, racism, slavery, poverty and | | | | Western Union." (2) |
| sexism. | | | | One commentator summed up the bulk of Park's |
| Born to an army colonel and a school teacher, | | | | works with: "Suzan-Lori Parks has become a |
| Parks knows what it was like to grow up an | | | | forerunner among contemporary black writers as |
| army brat. She lived in six states in her youth, | | | | she uses her plays to define blackness outside the |
| before attending high school in Germany. This | | | | white gaze." (3) I believe it is safe to say that |
| Pulitzer Prize-winning writer has no regrets about | | | | Parks writes plays not through anyone's gaze but |
| her mobile upbringing, saying "I had a great | | | | through her own unique kaleidoscope of broken |
| childhood. My parents were really into experiencing | | | | colors. |
| the places we lived. (1) | | | | Sources: |
| She began writing as a child with a daily | | | | (1) Bedford/St. Martin's. Suzan-Lori Parks: |
| newspaper she created called the Daily Daily. Her | | | | Biography. 1998-1999. Bedford/St. Martin's. 14 Mar |
| experience with theatre began at the Drama | | | | 2007. |
| Studio in London, where she studied acting. She | | | | (2) Craig, Carolyn Casey. Women Pulitzer |
| later studied writing at Yale and Hampshire | | | | Playwrights: Biographical profiles and analyses of |
| College, where she worked closely with James | | | | the plays. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, |
| Baldwin. (1) | | | | Inc., 2004. |
| Parks is the first African American to win the | | | | (3) Shannon, Sandra. "What is a Black Play?" |
| Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002 for her play, Top | | | | Theatre Journal. 57.4 (2005). |
| Dog/Underdog. She's received grants from the | | | | Further reading: |
| National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller | | | | Roach, Joseph. "The Great Hole of History: |
| Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the New York | | | | Liturgical Silence in Beckett, Osofisan, and Parks" |
| State Council on Arts and the New York | | | | The South Atlantic Quarterly. 100.1 (2001). |
| Foundation for the Arts. She also won the Whiting | | | | Robertson, Campbell. "What Do You Get if You |
| Writer's Award in 1992. | | | | Write a Play a Day? A Lot of Premieres." New |
| Parks rejects what she calls "theatre of | | | | York Times. 10 Nov. |
| schmaltz," the term she uses to describe plays | | | | Hogue, Bev. "Naming the Bones: Bodies of |
| with linear structures and realistic characters. (2) | | | | Knowledge in Contemporary Fiction." Modern |
| She writes with "repetition and revision," a term | | | | Fiction Studies. 52. 1 (2006). |