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Named one of TIME magazine's ""100 Innovators for the Next New Wave,"" in 2002 Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her Broadway hit Topdog/Underdog. A MacArthur ""Genius"" Fellowship recipient, she has also been awarded grants by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is the recipient of a Lila WallaceReader's Digest Award, a CalArts/ Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (Theatre) for 1996 and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. She is an alumna of Mount Holyoke College and New Dramatists. Her numerous plays include Father Comes Home From the Wars (2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2015 Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History, 2014 Horton Foote Prize), The Book of Grace, Topdog/Underdog (2002 Pulitzer Prize), In the Blood (2000 Pulitzer Prize finalist), Venus (1996 OBIE Award), The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Fucking A, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (1990 OBIE Award for Best New American Play) and The America Play. Parks's work on The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess earned the production a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical in 2012. In 2007 her 365 Plays/365 Days was produced in more than seven hundred theaters worldwide, creating one of the largest grassroots collaborations in theater history. Her work is the subject of the PBS Film The Topdog Diaries. Suzan-Lori's first novel, Getting Mother's Body, was published by Random House in 2003. Her first feature-length screenplay was Girl 6 written for Spike Lee. She's also written screenplays for Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster and Oprah Winfrey, adapting Zora Neale Hurston's classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, which premiered on ABC's Oprah Winfrey Presents. As a film actor Parks has appeared in the fictional documentary The Making of Plus One, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009. In November 2008 Suzan-Lori Parks became the first recipient of the Master Writer Chair at The Public Theater. At The Public, and as she tours the country, she performs her innovative performance piece, Watch Me Work, a play with action and dialogue/a meta-theatrical writing class. She also serves as a visiting arts professor in dramatic writing at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Holding honorary doctorates from Brown University, among others, Suzan-Lori credits her writing teacher and mentor, James Baldwin, for starting her on the path of playwriting. One of the first to recognize Parks's writing skills, Mr. Baldwin declared Parks ""an astonishing and beautiful creature who may become one of the most valuable artists of our time.""
One of the top plays of the year... A richly textured mix of Brechtian allegory and Homeric epic, finding new meaning in an essential American tragedy. -Richard Zoglin, Time By turns philosophical and playful, lyrical and earthy, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3) swoops, leaps, dives and soars, reimagining a turbulent turning point in American history through a cockeyed contemporary lens... The wonder of Ms. Parks's achievement is how smoothly she blends the high and the low, the serious and the humorous, the melodramatic and the grittily realistic. -Charles Isherwood, New York Times Suzan-Lori Parks's stunning new drama is that rare work of art: one that bears the heavy burden of its subject matter-the peculiar institution of American slavery- but that carries it lightly... Parks brings the full force of her dramatic power. She both elevates her themes with echoes of classic literature, while at the same time doubling down on comedy... This is serious work that is seriously entertaining. -Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly The best new play of the year... It is bold, hugely entertaining, moving and thrillingly ambitious. Suzan-Lori Parks bids fair to create a sprawling multi-part epic to plant alongside August Wilson's monumental Century Cycle, one of the great achievements in theater history. Parts 4 through 9 (or more?) can't come fast enough. -Michael Giltz, Huffington Post Suzan-Lori Parks may reach back to the ancient Greeks for references and structure, but her play delivers an in-themoment gut punch. Father Comes Home from the Wars is an insightful, poetic, often heartbreaking look at the devastations of war and slavery and the complications of freedom. -Robert Feldberg, Bergen Record One of the most provocative playwrights we have. -Linda Winer, Newsday Can one-third of something already be a masterpiece? Seems like it to me... People long for stories that engage the deepest possible issues in the most gripping possible ways. Father Comes Home from the Wars is one of thosestories-or maybe more than one. -Jesse Green, New York Brilliant, beautiful . . . This haunting work is funny and tragic, whimsical and lacerating, poetic and poignant... If Parks can sustain her sprawling project at this level as it moves forward, there's every reason to hope it will ultimately become no less significant and emotionally resonant an undertaking than August Wilson's ten-play Century Cycle. -David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter Parks's richest, most satisfying play... The real news isn't that Parks has hit the mark with a complex and ambitious work-she undoubtedly has. It's that the playful spirit of her best work turns out to be alive and well. -Tom Sellar, Village Voice Suzan-Lori Parks has finally arrived at classical proportions: her Civil War triptych is built along the sharp, symmetrical lines of Greek tragedy and Homeric epic... The language is poetic and formal, a modified nineteenth-century slave idiom, imbued with Parks's improvisatory, jazzy irreverence... After decades in which Parks encouraged us to get lost in the holes of history, she's playing where theater began: with song, story, ritual and catharsis. -David Cote, Time Out New York Provocative and rich... earthy and irreverently funny, neither pompous tragedy nor Ken Burns-type reenactment. -Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post One of the top plays of the year... A richly textured mix of Brechtian allegory and Homeric epic, finding new meaning in an essential American tragedy.  Richard Zoglin, Time By turns philosophical and playful, lyrical and earthy, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3) swoops, leaps, dives and soars, reimagining a turbulent turning point in American history through a cockeyed contemporary lens... The wonder of Ms. Parks's achievement is how smoothly she blends the high and the low, the serious and the humorous, the melodramatic and the grittily realistic.  Charles Isherwood, New York Times Suzan-Lori Parks's stunning new drama is that rare work of art: one that bears the heavy burden of its subject matter the peculiar institution of American slavery but that carries it lightly... Parks brings the full force of her dramatic power. She both elevates her themes with echoes of classic literature, while at the same time doubling down on comedy... This is serious work that is seriously entertaining.  Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly The best new play of the year... It is bold, hugely entertaining, moving and thrillingly ambitious. Suzan-Lori Parks bids fair to create a sprawling multi-part epic to plant alongside August Wilson's monumental Century Cycle, one of the great achievements in theater history. Parts 4 through 9 (or more?) can't come fast enough.  Michael Giltz, Huffington Post Suzan-Lori Parks may reach back to the ancient Greeks for references and structure, but her play delivers an in-themoment gut punch. Father Comes Home from the Wars is an insightful, poetic, often heartbreaking look at the devastations of war and slavery and the complications of freedom.  Robert Feldberg, Bergen Record One of the most provocative playwrights we have.  Linda Winer, Newsday Can one-third of something already be a masterpiece? Seems like it to me... People long for stories that engage the deepest possible issues in the most gripping possible ways. Father Comes Home from the Wars is one of thosestories or maybe more than one.  Jesse Green, New York Brilliant, beautiful . . . This haunting work is funny and tragic, whimsical and lacerating, poetic and poignant... If Parks can sustain her sprawling project at this level as it moves forward, there's every reason to hope it will ultimately become no less significant and emotionally resonant an undertaking than August Wilson's ten-play Century Cycle.  David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter Parks's richest, most satisfying play... The real news isn't that Parks has hit the mark with a complex and ambitious work she undoubtedly has. It's that the playful spirit of her best work turns out to be alive and well.  Tom Sellar, Village Voice Suzan-Lori Parks has finally arrived at classical proportions: her Civil War triptych is built along the sharp, symmetrical lines of Greek tragedy and Homeric epic... The language is poetic and formal, a modified nineteenth-century slave idiom, imbued with Parks's improvisatory, jazzy irreverence... After decades in which Parks encouraged us to get lost in the holes of history, she's playing where theater began: with song, story, ritual and catharsis.  David Cote, Time Out New York Provocative and rich... earthy and irreverently funny, neither pompous tragedy nor Ken Burns type reenactment.  Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post
