In 1985 Suzan-Lori Parks graduated with honors from Mt. Holyoke, where she studied with English. During her undergraduate career, Parks studied with writer James Baldwin, who encouraged the creation of her first play, The Sinners Place, in 1985. Though Holyoke refused to produce the play, with some faculty calling it "dirt," Parks continued to write, finishing Betting on the Dust Commander, in 1987. It is not until Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom, in 1989, that Parks began to receive wide acclaim. Shortly after Imperceptible Mutabilities opens, the New York Times called her "the years most promising new playwright," and she received an Obie award for "best new American play." In 1990 Parks dramatically added to her body of work by producing film Anemone Me and writing plays Pickling, Third Kingdom and The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World. When the later play opened in New York, critics applauded Parks's use of history, language and stereotype. Though controversial, the work was highly regarded and she received a National Endowment for the Arts Playwriting Fellow. The National Endowment for the Arts rewarded Parks again in 1991, and this year saw her write "Locomotive" for radio. Devotees in the Garden of Love opened in Louisville in 1992, the year in which Parks receiveed a Whiting Writers award. 

With success mounting in the form of awards and positive reviews, Theatre Magazine attempted a symposium of Suzan-Lori Parks's works in 1993. The piece was soon canceled, however, when too few African American critics are willing to participate. While many applauded Parks's genius, they disagreed with her portrayals of race, gender and history. On the heels of this rejection The America Play opened in New York in 1994 to bad reviews, poor ticket sales and walkouts. Within the next two years however, Parks was recognized with the W. Alton Jones Grant Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Award, wrote the screenplay for "Girl 6" and had the play Venus open in New York. Loosely based on the life of Saartjie Baartman, Venus was controversial even by Parks's standards. While some critics faulted the work's portrayal of the black female, the play enjoyed wide critical success winning an Obie for Best New American Play and helping Parks earn a CalArts/Alpert Award in Drama.

1999 found Parks's In the Blood opening in New York City. Using Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hester Prynne as a model, the play's Hester La Negrita and her children reside in a New York ghetto. Originally stemmed from a much larger piece titled Fucking A, In the Blood challenges Hawthorne's work by introducing the elements of race, poverty and sexuality. In 2000 Fucking A opens in Houston. A large play that is based on The Scarlet Letter, Fucking A solidified Parks's reputation as a playwright who uses history, race and gender for meaning.

In 2001 Parks received the MacArthur Foundation Award and Top Dog/Underdog opend in New York starring Jeffrey Wright as Lincoln and Don Cheadle as Booth. The play deals with the painful memories of the two brothers and provides a venue in which these two characters relentlessly try to dominate one another. Critical acclaim and excellent box office receipts moved the play to Broadway for 2002. With Mos Def filling the role of Booth, the play remained a success and won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Parks is currently creating a screenplay of Toni Morrison's Paradise, writing a stage musical called "Hoopz", working as a director at the California Institute of the Arts and enjoying the success of her first novel, Getting Mother's Body. Suzan-Lori Parks lives in Venice Beach, California with her husband, blues-musician Paul Oscher.
 

Selected Bibliography

Works by the Author
The America Play and Other Works, 1995
Betting on the Dust Commander, 1990
The Death of the Last Man in the Whole Entire World, 1990
Fucking A, 2001
Getting Mother's Body, 2003
In the Blood, 2001
Top Dog/Underdog, 2001
Venus, 2001
 

Works about the Author
Garrett, Shawn-Marie. "The Possession of Suzan-Lori Parks." American Theatre 17(8): 22-26, 132-134.

Pearce, Michele. "Alien Nation: An Interview with the Playwright." American Theatre 11(3) (March 1994): 26.

Solomon, Alisa. "Signifying on the Signifyin': The Plays of Suzan-Lori Parks." Theatre 21(3) (Summer-Fall 1990): 73-80.

Wilmer, S.E. "Restaging the Nation: The Work of Suzan-Lori Parks." Modern Drama 43(3) (Fall 2000): 442-52.
 

Related Links
http://www.scils.Rutgers.edu/~cybers/parks2.html
Biographical information and links

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/litlinks/drama/parks.htm
Links to play reviews 

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm./oped/loriparks.shtml
Parks's 2001 commencement address

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/123373_moment26.html
Q&A interview
 

This page was researched and submitted by Edward Lenahan.  Please contact the editor with any questions or suggestions.