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How did your life collide with the headlines in 2007?
Iraq, the subprime crisis, Facebook, immigration, oil prices - 2007 had no shortage of hefty headlines. We'd like to hear about how these and other major news events of the past year affected you. Where did your life collide with the news in 2007?

What's your holiday performance story?
The office talent show, the neighborhood caroling posse, the school pageant ... At holiday time we often sing, dance, and dress as shepherds. Did you bloom in the warmth of your audience's adulation, or freeze up like the snowman you'd rather be building? Did your holiday performance change your life or that of someone close to you?

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A Play a Day November 11, 2006
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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!

audio iconSuzan-Lori Parks talks with Barbara about how long she spends on writing (Real 0:50).

audio iconParks and Barbara give some aqua-technics advice to one of the 365 directors (Real 1:34).