A Play a Day
NOVEMBER 11, 2006 Listen to this Story
- Suzan-Lori Parks
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On November 12, 2002, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks started writing a play a day. She continued this for a full 365 days, scribbling the plays on napkins, on notebooks and while she was waiting for planes. By the end of the project she had 365 short plays, ranging from 1 to 5 pages. Starting this Monday, the plays will begin to make their stage debuts in 52 theater companies around the country. Barbara Bogaev talks with Suzan-Lori Parks about her body of work.
Notes from Producer Krissy Clark
Suzan-Lori Parks talked to us a lot about the idea of "radical acceptance." To paraphrase, it's the idea that when you accept the things, people and ideas that come into your world, no matter how different or even disagreeable they might be to your point of view, life gets more interesting. She says that's what drove her daily play-writing. When some phrase or character popped into her head, she went with it. You've got to when your mission is to write a play a day.
But radical acceptance is also behind the 365 Days/365 Plays festival she's producing. She went out of her way to invite theaters large and small to be part of the debut performances. From the Public Theater in New York to a group of architecture students who've never acted before in Austin Texas. (Her tip for non-actors: don't forget to breathe!) She said she wanted to "invite everyone to the table" to perform these plays, and that there'd be "enough pie for everyone." There's something about this idea that really appealed to us at Weekend America: the ambitiousness of gathering voices from all over the country, the wonderful democracy of bringing together professionals and amateurs. These are things that we try to do on our show every week too. That's one of the reasons we'll be following these plays as they unfold throughout the year. Stay tuned!
Suzan-Lori Parks talks with Barbara about how long she spends on writing (Real 0:50).
Parks and Barbara give some aqua-technics advice to one of the 365 directors (Real 1:34).
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- Music Bridge:
- Ride of the Valkyries
- Artist: Gary Lucas
- CD: Street of Lost Brothers (Tzadik)
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