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James Baldwin was an American Writer and Suzan-Lori Parks' mentor. He was the one who helped her get back into playwriting and had said to Parks that she “an utterly astounding and beautiful creature who may become one of the most valuable artists of our time.” In 1987, he died from stomach cancer.
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/suzan-lori-parks -
Suzan Lori Parks, was born in Fort Knox, Kentucky on May 10th, 1963. -
Because of her father's work, Parks moved around a lot. She lived in texas while her father was stationed in Vietnam and in 1974 Suzan-Lori, her mother, Francis, and her brother Donald moved to Germany with their father, Donald Parks, where he was stationed. While living there she became fluent in the language. -
While in Germany, Parks started her high school career. She moved back to the US before she graduated in 1981. While she was in high school she tried persuing her career as an author but one of her teachers had discouraged her from writing, telling her to instead pursue a career in science. So, she did.
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/suzan-lori-parks -
Suzan-Lori Parks has written a total of 9 plays, 3 screen plays, has had a hand in numerous radio plays and teleplays, and even her own novel in 2001.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Suzan-Lori-Parks -
Suzan-Lori Parks attended Mount Holyoke. While there, she took a writing elective and through it met James Baldwin who saw her writing abilities and encouraged her to be a playwright. Because of him she switched her major to English and German Literature and wrote her first play, "A Sinner's Place" in 1984, she graduated the next year. -
Produced in 1989, Imperceptible Mutabilities In The Third Kingdom won an Obie Award.This was a play with 4 scenes that were "connected by a dreamlike logic". The characters in this play were trying to find their identity while trying to combat the stereotypes created for them by white people.
https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/198909/imperceptible-mutabilities-in-the-third-kingdom-60829#:~:text=Playwright%20Suzan%2DLori%20Parks%20calls,that%20shadow%E2%80%94the%20representations%20and -
In 1991, Suzan-Lori Parks was an associate artist at Yale's school of drama. Her work there had attracted the attention and support from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations along with the National Endowment for the Arts. -
Her play, Venus, was created in 1996. Suzan-Lori Parks had won her second Obie award for Venus in 1996, the same year it was made! This play is about a black woman who was often sexualized because of her figure, she manages to escape from the people who objectified her and marry a white doctor.
https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/198909/imperceptible-mutabilities-in-the-third-kingdom-60829#:~:text=Playwright%20Suzan%2DLori%20Parks%20calls,that%20shadow%E2%80%94the%20representations%20and -
In 2001, Suzan-Lori Parks won a MacAuthur Foundation fellowship genius grant. The MacArthur Foundation fellowship grant is given to people in order to encourage their outstanding talent in their career. Parks was given $500,000 in a 5-year quarterly stipend, but today winners can win up to $800,000. -
In 2001, Parks decided to move to Los Angeles, California. While in California, she taught a graduate seminar about playwriting at the California Institute of the Arts. She also wrote a television adaption for "Their Eyes Were Watching God" and her book "Getting a Mother's Body"
https://achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/ -
In 2001, Suzan-Lori Parks married Paul Oscher, they were together for 9 years.
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In 2002, Suzan-Lori Parks was the FIRST African American woman to win the Pulitzer prize for drama, this for her play Topdog/Underdog. This is about 2 brothers who were abandoned by their parents and now as adults, are trying to get away from a life in poverty. As they both work for money, they fight for power over the other.
https://www.jobsitetheater.org/topdog-underdog/#:~:text=Topdog%2FUnderdog%20tells%20the%20story,lead%20them%20out%20of%20poverty. -
Suzan-Lori Parks created an adaptation of the 1935 opera called Porgy and Bess. In 2012 it became a broadway production and Parks won a Tony for best musical revival the same year. This musical is about Porgy, a beggar, trying to rescue Bess from her abusive lover and her drug dealer. -
In 2015, Suzan-Lori Parks won the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize is an award given to those who have “made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.”
https://gishprize.org/prize/ -
Well after her divorce with Paul Oscher, Suzan-Lori Parks married her current husband, Christian Konopka who is also a guitarist. Together they have one son by the name of Patrick. -
In 2018, Suzan-Lori Parks won the Steinberg Distinguished Playwriting Award. This award rewards playwrights who have already been recognized throughout their career with a $200,000 cash prize. It's considered to be "the largest award to honor american playwriting"
https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/steinberg-charitable-trust-establishes-awards-for-u.s.-playwrights#:~:text=The%20Steinberg%20Distinguished%20Playwright%20Award,award%20to%20honor%20American%20playwriting. -
Her play White Noise was created in 2019, being one of her most recent plays. This play is about a group of 4 characters experience a racially motivated incident with the police, this incident leaves one of the character, Leo, shaken up and prepared to take extreme measures for his own safety. This was the 3rd play she won an Obie for, and she once again was given the award the same year the play came out. -
Suzan-Lori Parks had a huge impact on the BLM movement through theater. She's always written about black people and their identity so during this time period her works became better known because people sought out more and more plays that spread the same message that she's spread since her first play
https://www.wnyc.org/story/review-suzan-lori-parks-play-last-black-man-elegy/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/28/black-lives-matter-onstage -
Now living in New York City with her husband and son, Suzan-Lori Parks works at NYU as she performs her experimental solo show called "Watch Me Work" while she continues writing her second novel.