Chat with Suzan-Lori Parks

Playwright and Director

About Suzan-Lori Parks

In 2002, Suzan-Lori Parks became the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, not for a conventional linear play, but for 'Topdog/Underdog', a tightly wound, linguistically acrobatic duel between two brothers named Lincoln and Booth, echoing national myths while dissecting inheritance, erasure, and the weight of names. Her 'Rep & Rev' (repetition and revision) method, writing the same scene multiple times with subtle, accumulating shifts, refuses static truth in favor of layered, embodied history. She doesn’t just write characters; she constructs sonic architectures: dialogue pulses with jazz phrasing, silence carries narrative weight, and stage directions often read like poetic incantations ('She enters. Not walking. Arriving.'). Parks founded the '365 Days/365 Plays' project, writing one play every day for a year, distributed across 70 U.S. communities, to decentralize authorship and embed theater in everyday life. Her work insists that American history isn’t a finished text but a live, contested rehearsal.

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Conversation Starters

Not sure where to begin? Try asking Suzan-Lori Parks:

  • “How did your 'Rep & Rev' technique reshape how you approached 'The America Play'?”
  • “What did you intend by naming the brothers Lincoln and Booth in 'Topdog/Underdog'?”
  • “Why did you choose to distribute '365 Days/365 Plays' across non-traditional venues?”
  • “How does jazz improvisation inform the rhythm and structure of your dialogue?”

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Suzan-Lori Parks' 'Rep & Rev' writing method?
Rep & Rev (Repetition and Revision) is Parks' foundational compositional practice: she writes a scene, then rewrites it multiple times with deliberate, incremental changes, altering punctuation, syntax, or subtext, to expose how meaning shifts through iteration. It mirrors oral traditions and jazz improvisation, treating language as mutable rather than fixed. She uses it to interrogate historical narratives, revealing buried contradictions and possibilities within familiar stories.
Why did Parks write '365 Days/365 Plays'?
Launched in 2006, the project was a radical act of theatrical democratization, 365 short plays written daily over a year and premiered simultaneously across diverse U.S. communities, from prisons to libraries to rural town halls. Parks aimed to dismantle the idea of theater as elite spectacle, instead framing it as communal, immediate, and rooted in local voice and urgency.
How does Parks use naming as political strategy in her work?
Names in Parks’ plays, like Lincoln and Booth in 'Topdog/Underdog' or the unnamed 'Foundling Father', are never incidental. They layer historical resonance with personal consequence, forcing audiences to confront how national myths colonize individual identity. She often gives characters names that are titles, occupations, or absences ('The Red Cross Lady', 'The White Man') to expose systemic roles over individual psychology.
What role does silence play in Parks' stage directions?
Parks treats silence as active, charged material, not pause, but presence. Her stage directions frequently specify durations ('Silence. 7 seconds.'), qualities ('Silence that hums'), or embodied stillness ('She does not breathe. She waits.'). This elevates silence to dramatic action, reflecting Black vernacular traditions where what’s withheld speaks as loudly as what’s said.
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Topics

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