A Conversation with Suzan-Lori Parks

good evening everybody thanks for coming out we were just discussing backstage the intricacies of the introduction and I thought these people are all here to hear suzan-lori they know who she is there's there's no reason for that but just started talking it you know keep us but it I mean we we of course are here to talk about a few things but in the immediate how many people here have already seen white noise Susan Laurie's play that is now public ok so there's enough that we have to be yes mindful of not giving yes to much of it away oh it's running through May 5th one of your children you're gonna have to sell it's a little tight in there I mean a little sold out because we're in New York that's so wall right so then we'll we'll we'll give a little way to that yeah I'll do a reenactment I'm doing it right now I'm starting right now so what we're gonna do is we've got we're gonna talk a little bit about the play yes and then you should be getting your questions ready and then we're gonna hear we're gonna have questions from you and then we're gonna talk some more about the great many other things yes Susan Laurie is doing in the world right now including a new production of native son that is including a band yeah including an upcoming series on Aretha Franklin so so we'll take two rounds of questions as two points so get your get your first round about white noise and the theater and then we'll come back for other stuff sound good all right so let's let's let's start with white noise as I understand it you said that this play is something of a fairy tale that's what I'm told what did you what did you mean by that if you don't remember saying it does it ring true oh well gee maybe because maybe because happily ever after his hard work maybe that's why I thought it was a fairy tale maybe because the real work begins at the end of the play as challenging as the play is the real work starts well not when the curtain falls because in that space there is not a curtain but the real work starts when the lights go down and the actors are taking their boughs and the real work you realize ot the real work starts with me and so maybe that's why I thought it was a kind of like a fairy tale there are no frogs in the play there's there's some kissing and there's a bowling alley but that no one kisses a frog and well so there's a lot happening in this play I feel like the best way to know I'm sorry they're kind of someone does kiss a frog no no a turtle but that's another I feel like the best way to get into this is to introduce the people we meet in the story there are four people four people they are in a been in relationships of varying kind with one another yes they were old friends in college yes but when we meet them they're to interracial yes couples to interracial couples yeah let's start so let's just walk through each of these people can you introduce this to them in what they've got going on in the work and maybe we should start with Leo let's start with Leo so who's Leo so Leo is he's the first character character it starts off the play and leo is a brother a man of African descent in his 30s who is a visual artist and who has insomnia and that's how he starts off the play I can't sleep all right he says while strangely enough sitting in a red chair and all the chairs in the theater are read pretty much so that's intentional so he has insomnia he can't sleep he can't sleep because years and years ago when he was five years old on an anniversary of MLK's death he doesn't remember which one but he was they were honoring that that tragic day in a church basement and a teacher of his a school teacher science teacher who missed Malvina who also enjoys her flasks she comes up to him and says Leo do you know that one day the Sun that shines up above do you know that one day the Sun is going to go out and everything is going to go all black and he begins to get a huge case of anxiety and he stays up at night wondering where the Sun is and this continues through his adult years so that's Leo and yes as a consequence struggling with his art he's struggling with his art yeah coz it's hard to you know he can't sleep and he tries all these remedies to get him to get a good night's sleep and what finally happens is his best friend whose name is Ralph who is a white guy in his also in his 30s all around the same age gives Leo a white noise machine that's where we get the title of the play to help him sleep and it works until it doesn't until it doesn't and then it becomes just a horrible sound in Leo's head and he can't sleep he can't work he doesn't get any work done and then he just his anxiety just starts to just escalate and escalate and then the next person we meet is dawn is dawn who is Leo's white girlfriend Leo's white girlfriend who's also a lawyer works as doing mostly work for folks who can't afford lawyers so she's a do-gooder you could say and really believes in justice and really believes that she she wants to do good for folks and doesn't want another young black man in prison a wonderful person the kind of person who you would want on your side if something difficult were to go down with you and she's his girlfriend and she cares for him she cares a lot about him but she doesn't want to marry him which creates some create some tension and I gather she is struggling with and and all of these characters that will go through they're struggling with identity questions as well and it seems like she's struggling with this idea of herself as a as a white person who cares about the world as a white liberal seems to be explicitly what she's struggling with is that true is that we could say she's struggling with her herself in the world I I say she's struggling with how can I be a just person in this unjust world how can I do the right thing when everybody else seems to be doing the wrong thing and that seems to be alright for them and she really she realizes that the social contract is broken you know that basic human kindness that should exist between us should that's a wish maybe but might exist between us that contract that we have that we could have between us is is broken and and that it's that's the cause so that's the root cause of a lot of the difficulty that we have in the world today you mentioned that she won't marry Leo they're their relationship so this this put part of why I'm starting with these characters is that it feels to me like so much it all turns on on these relationships and the way it all goes so wrong um and it seems like the first thing that seems to go wrong is that so leo has this run-in with the police right and dawn wants to save him she wants to it feels to me like she wants to be a savior and he doesn't want to do well he she wants him to go to that she wants him to get a lawyer lawyer up and sue the out of the police right and he's just so sick and tired he doesn't want his life to be like one of those biopics about you know brother under the thumb of the man gets rescued by some lady lawyer he's just so angry he's done everything right in his whole life he's done everything correctly I mean your last name was right see that's like I do he's done everything Curt availability is something that I'm very familiar with he's a good guy you know you he went to college he's got a career he works hard he's kind to people and yet he's done everything right and yet nothing is alright and that isn't alright and that fills him with a great amount of anger at this point in his life and he just doesn't want to you know challenge the cops and get all into that and do that so he feels he's just at the end of his rope I think he's at the end of his room he just doesn't see a way forward really none of them do they've all four characters have been pushed into corners by the world you know so we'll get to how the big moment of him being pushed into the corner but then let's quickly introduce the other teachers Ralph Ralph his best friend Ralph his best friend a white guy who has inherited a chain of bowling alleys from his father so Ralph is of means he's got money a little footnote down here Ralph and Leo used to be on the bowling team in college so they're great bowlers and if you can imagine we do have bowling in the play so if you've never seen bowling in a play and you want to see bowling in a play that's one reason to come to this play and Ike and you would think that it was a lot of but significant amount of bull there's a lot of bowling there's a lot of bowling and I learned just a couple of days ago that there's a book maybe someone in the audience has read it but called Bowling Alone our director Oskar Eustis told me this just yesterday I'm like tell me this yesterday become Bowling Alone in which a I think a scholar I've probably sociologist posits that you someone does someone know this no I hear yes but posits the notion that one of the reasons why our social contract might be frayed is because of the collapse of bowling you're nodding is this correct of places where people can gather together and Bowl no know which is which is my experience that's why I was so deeply interested in bowling my father's in the service we moved all around the world but wherever we went especially in the States there was a bowling alley and there was an opportunity to join even if you weren't a great bowler my parents were good but they weren't great at bowling and you could join and you could sit in you know those Bank whatever they're called banquettes like this and you could eat the chips and perhaps drink a beer and haha well your friend stood at the line and attempted to get to hit down the pins and it was a beautiful thing and I would go with them and watch how they newcomers in town would make friends very easily and quickly with people of different races and social groups and it was a lovely lovely thing and I would always be the kid who wanted to come on their parents date night just kind of sad but I would be my brother and sister would be at home with the babysitter and I'd be sitting there in the back watching my parents Bowl and so I put this because you make the bully quite a dark place in this way it is well it's this it's the place where the where the where the where the pivotal moment happens we're having leo having felt broken in this way decides to sell himself into slavery yes he does as Ralph his white friend slave right Ralph Scott because he wants to feel protected and respected and he figures fine then you know and this it's tricky so this idea for the play came from another play I've written in 2014 father comes home from the wars and there was thank you so there was a moment in that play where the man in 1860s said he was a enslaved man was saying okay so in the future when I'm free and I'm walking home from work and a law enforcement individual comes upon me and I'm gonna tell that law enforcement end of it I own myself you know that because they'll say who owns you and you'll say I'll say I own myself will that be enough for them to leave me alone and his friend says gee man I don't know and I sat there watching that play several years ago and I said I need to write a play about the future which is now and so that's how this play came about so so Leo and this play feels like he wants to feel protected and respected and it I know how to do that I'm gonna sell myself to my friends so I'm gonna be his property so it's it's just again an angry desperate measure and he says he'll do it for 40 days because after 40 days he'll transcend this he hopes and find a way to just go forward in the world and what is it he's transcending what is wooded that's one of the things what did he think he was freeing himself up well sort of the undigested rage and despair and I don't know maybe you don't I mean I don't want to speak for again there's no mono thought in this culture and there's certainly no black mono thought but I personally and brothers and sisters I know have a lot of undigested rage and despair and interestingly enough not just brothers and sisters people I know of all races classes and persuasions we carry around the people I know maybe I just hang out with an angry crowd thoroughly bunch my friends but we carry around a lot of feelings and we don't know quite what to do with them we've all I think in this country we've all been promised something no matter what your race or your class or whatever we've all been promised something and the country is not delivering it equally to us and so we've all got this undigested these undigested feelings and he wants to process those feelings and so he will take himself to the darkest place because like Freud or Jung said the only way out is through he's going to take himself through it and he hopes to come to some kind of realization he wants to feel his feelings and come to something you know so one of the I think really fascinating tensions in this story is between him and me shaaa the fourth character the first person we meet who is Ralph's wife is it feels like taking a very different tack at the same can you tell us about what's going on yeah so me who graduated summa Sochi and college graduate at the top of her class she's the smartypants of the group sister who has decided that she is going to be a I don't know internet influencer of vlogger and so she has a show that she does once a week called ask a black and she's online she's probably I'm looking at the clock because the show is running right now she's probably online right now and what people can do is you can call in and ask her questions and so people call in from all over the country and ask her questions so this is her attempt to digest some of those feelings not just in herself but in the culture you know by being sort of a representative of the race and she's opening up a dialogue but she's quite an outsized representative right I mean she's almost playing a caricature of herself well yeah yeah I mean because her reason it is is that that's what people want authenticity and this is what authenticity looks like I mean I don't know about you but there are you know sometimes certain ways of being of African descent are profitable and certain ways are unless so you know I mean if anybody in the audience have ever said you know like for example if you're born in New York and you have someone whatever your race or class whatever and you have someone say gosh you don't seem like a New Yorker like that so now transpose that into being a person of African descent gosh you don't seem like a person you think what does that me oh so there's that so she figures to be popular she's going to heighten those mannerisms that are commonly thought to be part of the African experience just you know like say yeah I don't know say somebody who grew up in and who wants to be authentic and wants to adopt some mannerisms that would be called from the because that's what sells you know I wonder about I mean in this one of the things that I really took away this tension between Leo and Misha who are both kind of performing blackness right so it feels like Leo has decided in selling himself into slavery to perform a version of victimhood right where she seems like she's performing strength right is that fair to characterize them that way and can I ask do you sit in any of that how does where do you show up in those characters yeah yeah yeah I think I can look at my day and perform only I perform you know victimhood and strength depending on the moment you know what I mean I mean trying to hail a cab what am I what kind of blackness am i performing there not too much strength not sure how that would read not too much victimhood you want them to know you have money to pay the fare a lot of thing you know so it's always gauging like how can I best present myself to just accomplish the simple day-to-day tasks so it's it's a constantly moving role you know it's not a fixed role interestingly enough they say about the play most plays I'm in there and you probably can't tell from this conversation it's also very funny because I'm sorry no no it's very very funny there are a lot a lot of jokes in the play the actors say that on any given night they don't know where exactly the jokes are gonna land usually after a month running a play a month or two they've been running it for quite some time now the actors know where the jokes are gonna land and so they can pause and let the joke I mean let the laughter happen and here they say night tonight we don't know what people are gonna laugh at why do you think that is I think cuz we're alive I mean aren't we we are okay so I think then that's that different audiences different age groups different demographics whenever they find different things funny and appealing or frightening or it's it's a very live it's it's it's it's live it's theatre it's live action well it's also I mean was it a deliberate choice to have the lights are up and I wonder about how much people in the audience how conscious we are of each other and whether you want right yeah yeah that's part of it it's in the Anspach or theater for those of you have been in the public theater if you saw a top dog on a dog in the Ansbach or a lot of my plays are done in that space and it's what I call three sides live kind of like this you know with the audience wrapping around the stage so we can see each other and that's part of the show we can watch each other because again we start with the character sitting in a red chair much like the audience the majority of the audience members the chairs are red so you think there's a difference in white black whatever your racial position is and how you receive this play yes but I think it it's it's it's it's not just white black it's white black over over 40 under 20 college people go to a lot of theater people who don't it really it's it's it's not as simple as white black it's it's it's a living you know thing it's it's exciting I mean it's thrilling because of that because we're not just you can't just sit there I mean I can't as a writer one would think oh yeah right I side quote most closely with the person that I most obviously look like which isn't true necessarily you know well I'm right in the middle of all these four characters I agree with all of them which is what made the place so difficult to write and so much fun to write to well and on that so yeah we talked about performing blackness but it feels like there's a lot of performing whiteness right also Ralph and Dawn's character right and it almost it they seem to have a similar tension is this true you know we're by dawn is sort of performing what she thinks is a proper liberal white person right and Ralph doesn't seem to buy their performance for himself as much what's going on with it I think for all characters and with all people there's a part there's a moment when the performance breaks down and you know you realize you're behaving in a certain way in order to get something and then you realize one day that just won't work for you anymore and that's what happens to the characters over the course of the play they become real which means things become difficult and so the conversations that they used to paper over and decide not to have because they were kind of awkward right they start having and that's where the tension comes from they just start saying things that they're feeling which i think is ultimately good and like I said the real work starts at the end of the play well it's where it gets quite dark too because we're now we're in a master/slave relationship yes the secrets start coming out and retention starts coming out and I couldn't help but think about and I know James Baldwin has been a big part of your life I use my writing teacher in college which I mean you know I know so he gave me a sword and I got it's to what kind of world what a beautiful world yeah James Baldwin's suzan-lori parks sitting in a room thinking about writing but I I kept thinking about his novel another country and which you know is all about interracial relationships or not about but he's and it's quiet to me it's one of his darkest works because it seems to posit that at least at the time you know the effort to be intimate of any kind friendships family sexually across racial lines would literally kill everybody involved and this was what are we to take a from your vision about you know that interracial intimacy from this play because it becomes quite fraud yeah it's work it takes real work but we're living I mean it's a beautiful thing I think I mean I I'm the kind of person who relishes work you know I do a lot of which is why I have these tattoos on my arm if they're Sanskrit I do a lot of yoga and one of the main tenants of yoga is fatty yo-yo which is self-study and so I've been doing yoga for years and years and years and we hold that as one of our you know as cornerstones that I will look at myself and and and examine myself and ask myself Who am I really and what am I really doing and really worked toward self-knowledge and self-awareness instead of just you know pointing the finger at them over there who must be the problems of all our bad stuff that's some to my mind I think you know lokhnath begins here and it's not something that I need to point at someone so it's just my thing so I relished that I relished that challenge and I sure I think interracial la me and my husband's a white guy more than just a white guy Jesus that's horrible he's an awesome person but it takes work you know it takes work it's like you want it you want to work at this we want to say hey okay we're not all the same and that's what makes it to my line this country truly great they were actually and even sisters together it's like just because we're both sisters doesn't mean we don't have any conversations right we need to have some conversations we need to there's so much work to be done I'll Cameron not get on my soapbox we're actually here for you to be on your soapbox okay say wanted sisters and brothers we are like Misha says we are we have been trained by the system not to support each other and I think we need to start supporting each other now right now I have a really good friend I was an awesome writer who is Asian Americans specifically korean-american and she said that when the site called family just came out the crazy rich Asians came out she was part of a and she's a high writer in in television and she said that a whole bunch of Asian American folks high ups in the entertainment industry came together and had like a luncheon and said hey let us support each other and I was like a black folks are like hey wait wait till they cross the street I'm gonna try to cut them what's going on so but but we've been rewarded for that behavior historically and we're doing what we've learned it's not some corrupt saying that we have it's something that we've learned to do something that we've been rewarded to do and we need to we can do better than that and it's hard because we have habits that have been rewarded but I think we can do better so that's that's one of my things that has nothing to do with the playout thing but maybe it's in there I promise to take the time always goes fast I promise to take two rounds of questions so I'm gonna ask one more question and then we're gonna give you an opportunity if you have questions about let's talk about white noise now and then we'll we'll we'll come back to some broader questions questions later so get your hand up if you have something to ask if not I'll plow forward characteristic characters names which is why I got turtle mixed up with frog can I say yes so the characters names the characters names are Leo Don Misha and Ralph and anybody ever heard of the Ninja Turtles right leonardo Donatello Michelangelo and Raphael so that's where I got their names from and I tell I'd realized that I tell myself these dumb jokes before I dive deep and when I find myself laughing is haha oh here I go down into a deep difficult place and the laughter is like a lure that hooks me and drags me down yeah so anyone here we have one in the middle we'll take a couple and then we'll come back and take some more at the end hello I love down I do so when writing this play did you find relevant or consider at all the consumption by adjacent minorities both those who identify with white America and those who identify with brown America because I know we heard you guys talking about like you're white audience members and you're black ones like the differentiations between those mm-hmm what's cool about I I have thought of that and what I build in the play is a system it's tricky to talk about if you haven't seen it but it's a system of relationships right between four people and what happens is I do all the comment all the scenes are different combinations of folks every character gets a solo yes sir you've seen every character gets a solo and then after the break or the intermission or when the the slavery kind of conversation happens and the contract is agreed upon after in the second half of the play you might notice that combinations of characters continue but they're only men only women only white people only black people and so what that does mathematically is it creates a web so that everybody is included in the conversation energetically that's what happens but that's what I've noticed happens from their talk backs because we have latina expose in their asian-american folks Asian people come poke people from all over are definitely invested in involved in the conversation because of the the lines that I've drawn energetically and with the scenes so it's it's you get a the biggest bang with four characters you combine them in different ways and you sort of get everybody in the net it's a good way I didn't notice that I have to say I didn't notice after the break you're right the men have a scene the women have a scene the men have a scene then solo then the white folks have a scene Ben solo than the black folks ever seen so yeah it's definitely it's it's it's cut up like that whereas in the first half of the play its interracial interracial you know and then all four of them together like that so yeah well if only if there's no one else that has a burning question about the play I mean you win the right to follow up I think that's really great it seems like that sort of solution would make it easier for people of different demographics to actually understand the plight of the two demographics that you're talking about so I really appreciate that well thank you and again it's tricky because what you see is you see what appears to be you know these demographics but actually it's talking about all of us because you know questions and things like equality and inequality and racism and fairness and justice and getting your piece of the pie and all those things it's a question that involves all of us you know I'm saying so that's it's not just a white black thing but that's just how I decided to draw this one out you know I got to move us to native son native son cuz let's say I have to say I native son is a novel by Richard Wright that I'm saying know who's not a relative of mine sadly however I do have a long relationship to the novel yeah it's just I mean it's such a particularly as a black man and found myself in it in a bunch of different ways and have continued to find myself in it in a bunch of different ways over the over the years depending on how angry are vulnerable and I guess the the fairly obvious first question to ask you about this is just that I mean it's such an iconic text people have tried to adopt it to film they made the film would they made the film but I mean in the MOOC Hey in the film business our expectations I mean it got greenlit it got made to adapt is there something uniquely hard about it to adapt right right correct correct it's it's it's a it's a heavy story it's a it's a it's a horrible story it's a practically a true story it's the story of a brother who you don't want to be your brother and yet he's your brother you are your brother's keeper yo and it's enricher right I said I think I read something he doesn't want us to cry for bigger and yet I cried for bigger when I read the novel I cried for bigger and myself I cried for Mary Dalton I cried for the Dalton family you know I cried for Biggers mom and he's you know I you know so can you get it feels silly to do but can you give just a very quick recap of if anybody there any Richard Wright scholars in the audience maybe could I mean oh so okay so it's set in nineteen if the novel's 80 years old and it's set in do the math I don't know but it's set along some of the way but and it's a story of a young man whose name is bigger Thomas who wants to find his place in the world you could say lives with his mother and his siblings in Chicago they don't have a lot of money mother is hardworking father died when he was young and one day his mom he has he's angry right that's another he's angry can't find his way through this world similar Thalia yes although yeah similar but and one day his mom he hears hears of a job for him a job driving as a chauffeur for a wealthy family name the Daltons wealthy white family this family so he goes to interview for the job this family is a righteous family I mean they're nice folks they live in a nice house they seem lovely mrs. Dalton I do this mrs. Dalton is visually impaired she's blind and mr. Dalton is gregarious and kind they have one daughter whose name is Mary Mary Dalton who's outgoing and wants to do good in the world you know and I mean I want to I don't want to mix up the story of the novel with the story of the film because the story the film was closer tonight which in my mind right now but one so big bigger gets the job he loves the job and one night I'm trying to think cuz I can only think of the film now well the main point here is he does which driving in the story is that he murders he murders her accidentally she is I I want to get this she is intoxicated I think look and no noisy loud he helps her up the stairs the grand staircase in the house she's making a lot of noise he's so verify he's gonna lose his job which is kind of sort of the only nice thing that's kind of ever happened to him kind of sorta and so he is trying to get it a shut up and takes a pillow and puts it over her face and as the mother visually-impaired cannot see comes to the door and is standing in the doorway he shut up and when he removes the pillow mary has died and then become then it gets even more intense because he figures well I got to dispose of the body they have a furnace downstairs he puts her in the furnace and yonward from there yeah and you know in the idea of both in Baldwin and yours I'm sorry and right and in your tank you know it's that he can disappear that he is so unseen and people have such a so many ideas about a black male in his body that they can map onto it that perhaps he can walk through the world and no one will see him right and it doesn't happen right one of the choices you've made that I'm particularly curious about and so in the book bigger Thomas and and I and I have to say I wonder if I just conjured this or okay this is how Richard Wright described and is you know is a he's a large man he's stoic he's you know and he is representative of a lot of things that white people fear physically right and you have cast him as more acid yeah Ashton Sanders yeah who's a he's slender and kind of when he leans on you he kind of drapes himself on you and he's always got the sly smile wonderful you're wonderful brother but Rashid Johnson who's the director of the film and also a really awesome visual artist and we really wanted to explore Biggers fragility his strength his determination but also get to those things that we don't ordinarily allow in our minds certain people to feel you know ie black women are supposed to be strong and we're seeing often is angry even when we're not even when we're just talking with our hands excitedly but we're not supposed to be fragile neither you know black men not fragile you're scary if you're big if you're large you know or even if you're not we were dangerous so we wanted to explore what we knew also we wanted to explore the possibility of bigger Thomas and Mary Dalton becoming friends that was very important to me to imagine its 2019 and what do we got in 2019 the possibility that we might become friendly but again much like in white noise they become friends and it is not a good thing well there's there's work to do it's not just like friending someone on Facebook hello we're friends now great there's work that means that's the beginning like happily-ever-after takes a lot of work there is work to do there's real work there conversations that need to be had and again not just with between you know black and white but between black and black and sisters and brothers need to talk to each other we all need to start having substantive conversations about what we're really feeling and thinking and start unpacking some of that stuff so big and Mary don't Mary gives the in the film Mary gives big a gift a present a record a piece of vinyl that he loves and she he at her boyfriend Jan's request gives her some drugs I think it's Molly he gives her because they're friends you know they're hanging out they're sharing things and she gets sort of overwhelmed by the drugs and then of course again he's scared for his job and but she's also demand like there's a friendship but it doesn't feel equal it she's nding access to his blackness well that's her employer how so how is she demanding access to if I unpacked that that's what it felt like to me I mean it was you but it's your phrase it's it he it felt like he didn't he wasn't eager to enter into the friendship she kept lure you know she he was on his job and she kept saying come hang out let's go to the bar let's drop your guard and you know and show me this black world I don't have access to and he was a reluctant and when he gave into it right it was his undoing no no no I I hear what you're saying because perhaps he didn't know how to negotiate that friendship nor did she you know so I you know the wanting access to his blackness wanting access sure he's someone but but is that a that's not in itself a bad thing I mean we're you know we're we demand access to each other's your fashion sense you know what I mean I want to hang with you because look you know where does shop you know I'm saying and so we we are always looking at each other saying hi you know you're you're a scholar you can and that's not in itself a bad thing but we skip over the necessary beats of development and we don't really we there's a point where we might stop listening to each other and only think about what we want from the other and that's where it gets problematic we don't have a lot of time and it could be a night I hate to rush onto from that but your band I promised you we would talk about your god I didn't my band my band my man we want this curtain by the way because when we rehearse at home in addition to writing plays and movies and other you told me backstage I didn't know this you were writing songs before you were writing plays I was writing right that's the first thing I started writing songs before I was writing plays or novels or short stories or anything or essays or films TV shows of course but yeah yeah yeah the songs came first and and it's still the smaller the smallest tree and my in my forest but you know give it a chance to grow and your tree between in between the the plays and the TV shows we we dig out so that's cool what is it what's what brings you joy about it I love writing songs and I love playing the guitar and I got it okay good good right hand and I just I love guitars I love gear my husband's making me a new guitar for my birthday so I'm excited we look at wood and we talk about you know the action what pickup so I'm gonna have on it yeah but it's and it's just I think personality-wise I think the world of literature was more welcoming to me than the world of music the world of music I found to be at an early age very threatening for real specific reasons and the world of literature I could sort of you know the lie being in a library surrounded by books was a safer space for me than being in a bar surrounded by people listening to music are the musicians so I kind of spent more time in the library as a writer and that's the it's the being in the bar to be music well to be a musician yeah it's it's it's it's dicey it's it's it's kind of so but now I'm you know I got these steel that's right so it's called suzan-lori parks in the band and it's easy to easy name for the band and it's like neo-soul Black Rock you know that's great and so related to that maybe you're you are now also about to be the showrunner for national Geographics next season of genius which is gonna be about a real I know so I spend yeah I'm doing I'm still in the research phase of it but I spend a lot of time watching clips of her singing and I read like I know right I know I suffer so and yet I have to go beyond the the person that she presented most often to her audience what fascinates you about her know she's got I mean she is she is um her fragility and her strength just how she just continued regardless I mean she had some serious hardships that she did not really share with the world necessarily and she might have shared through her voice and her presence and her musical awesome musical chops which were amazing but she just continued on she she kept going when most people would have quit and that's pretty great I continued an amazing race the double disc yeah I know I grew up in church I don't go to church these days so with me but I do go to Aretha I have only left five minutes for your questions but I was selfish that way but we do have these five minutes so anything you want to ask suzan-lori parks let's go who's got one and I think we're gonna bring it we're gonna bring a mic around here we go with the hat yeah so just going back to the native son thing to talking about the the friendship in that cuz even reading the book there's because there's a lot of power dynamics happening with that so it's almost I can kind of friend should even happen in that with those power dynamics happening I think that's something that we're I think even as a society kind of exploring right now in terms of you know who's kind of on top and who's on bottom but my other question was just about as a playwright I guess tackling screenwriting and then how is that and particularly adapting or work like that how do you know how to even start we're kind of the highs and lows and challenges right right no that's a great question man the highs are definitely that I get to work I feel that I get to work hand in hand with a great writer who in Richard Wright skate I've worked on native son Their Eyes Were Watching God we did for Oprah we yeah well when she had the Oprah Winfrey presents the Gershwins Porgy and Bess I worked get on Broadway a few years back I get to hold the hand of a great writer and I get to walk with them I really feel like I feel like the original writer got it right they really did Richard Wright did it correctly right our job is to roll the wheel forward so we're not schooling him on what he should have done you know I'm saying we're not Monday morning morning quarterbacking his okay we are saying WOW well done brother let's bring it to now to 2019 for example so that's definitely the high the other high is that they've done the majority of the work so I don't have to really figure out the plot points like yeah you know it's like it's like tracing you know did tracing something so that's kind of nice lo they're working on native some Rashid Johnson is a great director it was joy the cast was wonderful the producers were lovely and respectful and cool there were no lows in that you know there's a lot of beautiful people so there aren't there any lows but it's just a different kind of tactic with screen between screenwriting and playwriting like the difference I tell my students at NYU the difference between velvet and corduroy and when you're writing a screenplay maybe it's velvet black velvet I heard you like black velvet black velvet and okay well or teal and corduroy so it's that kind of thing it's just a different same act action you know just different vibe different feeling you know I mean obviously theater I'm feel like I'm right there in the room with them when I write a screenplay a movie a TV show I turn on the movie in my head I just watch it I'm watching you know so it's a kind of a different muscle yeah but it's all enjoyable yeah there was another hand over here back there I have a question that's a bit odd but um in white noise you have a contract in the play and I was wondering how you felt that changed the play formally if at all like having that concede there right so yeah so what she's referring to is Leo our brother in the play says you know Ralph I want you to I want to be your slave for 40 days and he's very specific and it's he wants them to have sort of a game plan or a sort of an agreed-upon set of circumstances which is a modern take on the the immoral up system sorry I'm trying to see you I don't know so it's a modern take on it he's very clear about the forty days and he says we should be allowed to do certain things and shouldn't be allowed to do other things and then of course in the next scene they go about changing everything up and agreeing to change everything up so it's just a more of a modern take on it that's all yeah yeah and it also survives with the idea of the social contract you know and the contract that Don is talking about Don has a contract with her parents not in written contract but just an understanding the understandings that we have with people so we having to play an actual physical mini paged document that they agree upon they review and agree upon and then in the first scene of Act two they change it up they type out some Ralph writes up some amendments and they put the amendments on the wall and that becomes the next thing that they agree upon and we and I noted they they tack it on the wall it stays on the wall it's like it's it's a I believe also a red piece of paper there was one over here hi one second because we're live streaming so we want you we go it was so interesting early on when you're talking about anger and society and you organized that thinking and I wondered if you wanted wanted to mention or offer did you have a metamorphosis did you have kind of some maybe crucible in your life where you had anger and you did then just work through it yeah that's great did I have some anger and what at one point in my life and if I work through it it's like this song how I got over you know Clara ward [Music] Oh every day I sing that song every day every day every day there's a crucible every day it's like oh you have to I mean it's it's not a it's not a hit it and quit it you know what I mean it's a it's a daily that's what it is I and I bring it on that's what it means for me to be alive here we are we're grappling with things every single day and for me it's about working through it with maximum kindness and generosity so that I can continue to be of service that's my goal and when I do that when I can manage that instead of like go wow I want somebody in my you know what I really can manage that I feel ah yes yes now I am now I am growing I'm being the person who my forefathers and foremothers dreamed about that's my job and whoever we are right we got we have people back there who dreamt of something great and this is who we are we're here right now able to realize that if only we would commit to doing the work so folks suzan-lori parks thank you for joining and I think we got some more music coming now I believe I don't have my headset so I can't say [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The Greene Space at WNYC & WQXR

Views: 2,264

Rating: 4.6571426 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: kUPu-mZz3FI

Length: 55min 33sec (3333 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2019