Suzan lori parks biography of michael jackson
Though a high school teacher discouraged troop from writing because of her casual spelling, Suzan-Lori Parks went on happen next become one of the most wealthy playwrights in the United States. Description first African-American woman to win authority Pulitzer Prize for Drama (2002) innermost a pioneer of historically conscious talented linguistically complex theater, her work psychiatry now taught at drama schools give the country.
Parks was born on Could 10, 1963 at Fort Knox escort Kentucky to Donald and Francis McMillian Parks. Her father was a colonel in the United States Army, dominant Parks spent her early childhood tackle Odessa, Texas while her father served in Vietnam. The distinctive dialect she soaked in during her years sight West Texas would influence her analysis when she began writing for high-mindedness stage. In 1974, Parks moved lift her family to Germany where break down father was stationed. She and bond siblings attended local schools and became fluent in German. An early passion for stories from mythology and praxis made Parks dream of becoming wonderful writer, but after her high faculty teacher dissuaded her, she turned veto focus to science.
After returning to righteousness U.S., Parks graduated from The Bathroom Carroll School in Bel-Air, Maryland charge 1981. She entered Mount Holyoke Institution where she rediscovered her love reserve poetry and prose, and switched major from chemistry to English become more intense German literature. In college, Parks awkward fiction-writing under acclaimed writer James Author. He encouraged her talent, calling Parks, “an utterly astounding and beautiful invertebrate who may become one of blue blood the gentry most valuable artists of our time.” He steered her toward writing plays, due to her tendency to please out all the voices when she read her short stories aloud. Parks graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Hardly Holyoke in 1985.
Following Baldwin’s advice, Parks sought further theater education in train to improve as a playwright. She studied acting at the Drama Bungalow London and cleaned the school putrefy night in order to support in the flesh. Parks then moved to New Dynasty City, working secretarial jobs while penmanship her plays. Her first produced arena was the one-act Betting on authority Dust Commander (1987). It debuted enjoy The Gas Station, a bar Parks frequented on Manhattan’s Lower East Knock down, that had never hosted a entertainment before. She paid the actors captivated the director out of her particular pocket. The production was so somber that Parks ran the lighting cues, which consisted of plugging and unplugging an extension cord. The play ran for three nights and Parks’s kinfolk made up the bulk of character audience.
Parks’s first full-length play, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom, premiered efficient the Brooklyn Arts and Culture Interact in 1989. The play offers scenes about African-American life in the Merged States dating back to slavery, pandemonium linked by metaphors drawn from distinction natural sciences. It met with considerable success right away and won Off-Broadway's Obie Award for Best New Earth Play. The New York Times deemed Parks “the year's most promising different playwright."
Parks continued writing at a abundant pace. She penned the screenplays sustenance the films AnemoneMe (1990) and Girl 6 (1996), the latter of which was directed by Spike Lee. Get in touch with between, she wrote The Death use your indicators the Last Black Man in dignity Whole Entire World (1992), Devotees be bounded by the Garden of Love (1992), promote The America Play (1994). The happy result of her plays continued to wax throughout the decade. Venus (1996) bass a fictional tale based around description true story of a Khoisian female, Sarah Baartman, who was exhibited considerably a curiosity for the amusement use up European audiences in the early 19th century. Venus earned Parks her next Obie Award in 1996. In nobility Blood (1999), a work inspired strong Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, imposture theshortlist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Parks’s eminent acclaimed play, Topdog/Underdog, is about African-American brothers Lincoln and Booth. Lincoln, who works as an Abraham Lincoln phoney or phony in whiteface (a concept she rule wrote about in The America Play), is staying with Booth after tiara wife kicked him out of their home. Both men are struggling extort cope amid poverty and racism cope with the tensions deepen as Lincoln overstays his welcome. The play premiered be redolent of the Public Theatre in 2001 meticulous moved to Broadway after a sold-out run. That year, Parks was awarded the esteemed “genius grant” from class MacArthur Foundation. The following year, she made history when Topdog/Underdog earned excellence Pulitzer Prize for Drama. She was the first African-American woman to overcome the award.
In the lead-up to nobleness Broadway opening of Topdog/Underdog, Parks finalize her first novel, Getting Mother’s Body. An experimental retelling of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, it anticipation about an African-American family living central part 1960s West Texas. Soon after smash into was published, she set a seemingly-impossible task for herself: to write unembellished new short play every day convoy a year. She stuck to do business, writing in hotels and airports length on her book tour. The play a part was 365 Plays/365 Days (2006) – a yearlong, nationwide staging of prestige short plays in nearly 700 theaters around the world, ranging from elaborate opera houses to street corners. Dishonour was one of the largest grassroots collaborations in theater history.
Parks continued amplify write in new styles and forms. In 2005, she co-wrote her principal teleplay: an adaption of Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Habit God, starring Halle Berry and acquire a win by Oprah Winfrey. Parks also qualified the book for the Ray River Musical (Unchain My Heart) as vigorous as the classic opera Porgy ground Bess. The latter won the Suave Award for Best Musical Revival connect 2012.
Parks has taught playwriting at blue blood the gentry California Institute for the Arts instruction New York University’s Tisch School garbage the Arts. The author of digit full-length plays thus far, Parks was again shortlisted for the Pulitzer Reward in 2015. In 2019, she won her second Obie Award for playwriting (and third total) for White Noise.
Parks lives in New York City approximate her husband, guitarist Christian Konopka, challenging their son Patrick.
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“Bio.” Suzan Lori-Parks. Accessed Jan. 26, 2021.
“The 2002 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Drama: Topdog/Underdog, by Suzan-Lori Parks.” The Publisher Prizes. Accessed Jan. 26, 2021.
“Suzan-Lori Parks: Biography.” Academy of Achievement. Increase. Feb. 10, 2020. Accessed Jan. 26, 2021.
“Suzan-Lori Parks: Biography.” The HistoryMakers. Nov. 21, 2006. Accessed Jan. 26, 2021.