Suzan-Lori Parks
SUZAN-LORI PARKS Named one of Time magazine's "100 Innovators for the Next New Wave," Ms. Parks' plays include The Book of Grace, In the Blood (200 Pulitzer Prize finalist), Venus (1996 OBIE Award), The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Father Comes Home from the War Part I: The Union of My Confederate Parts, Fucking A, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (1990 OBIE Award for Best New American Play), and Topdog/Underdog (Broadway) for which she won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, becoming the first African-American woman to do so. Ms. Parks had a lead acting role in The Making of Plus One, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. She's written screenplays for Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Girl 6, written for Spike Lee, and adapted Zora Neale Hurston's classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, which premiered on ABC's "Oprah Winfrey Presents." In 2007, her project 365 Days/365 Plays was produced in over 700 theaters worldwide, creating one of the largest grassroots collaborations in theater history. Parks' first novel, Getting Mother's Body, (Random House, 2003) is set in the west Texas of her youth. A student of James Baldwin, with whom she credits the launch of her interest in playwriting, Ms. Parks is a MacArthur "Genius" Award recipient, and has been awarded grants by the National Endowment of the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts. She is the recipient of a Lila-Wallace Reader's Digest Award, a CalArts/Alpert Award, a Guggenheim Foundation Grant and is an alumna of Mount Holyoke College and New Dramatists. Her work is the subject of the PBS film The Topdog Diaries. Ms. Parks is at work on her second novel, and her Ray Charles musical, Unchain My Heart, is scheduled to premiere on Broadway within the coming year. She teaches at NYU, and is currently performing her experimental solo show, Watch Me Work at the Public Theater, where she serves as Master Writer Chair. Photo Credit: Stephanie Diani Bio as of January, 2012. American Theatre Wing programs, interviews and/or credits include: Working in the Theatre (video) The Playwrights' Voice 2012 - January, 2012 - Watch now. Roles for Ourselves: Playwrights 2010 - March, 2010 - Watch now. Internet Broadway Database Listing (IBDB.com) Website: www.suzanloriparks.com