A Million Suggestions from Suzan-Lori Parks

[Applause] hi friends applaud ORS my name is where Harmon I'm the executive director of townhall Seattle and I always say that it's a pleasure to welcome the person that I'm welcoming but I don't even have the words to express how I feel about welcome you to tonight's event with suzan-lori parks as we begin our time together I want to acknowledge that we gather tonight on the traditional territory of the Coast Salish people and particularly the Duwamish we thank them for their hospitality and for our continuing use of the natural resources of their ancestral homeland Susan Laurie's talk will last we think about 45 minutes or so we say we think because it also includes the presentation of a newly commissioned work a play called beginner to rededicate our Great Hall some of you may know that the very first public event in our building way back in March of 1999 was called Seattle's favorite poems it was mayor who's a mayor it wasn't Paul Shelley at any rate the mayor reading I don't know Wallace Stevens or something and that I shouldn't risk the appointees famous ish people local celebrities reading there because suddenly I'm gonna get letters about who I said was yeah at any rate I'm famous ish people reading poems that had really moved them and the highlight of the evening or the sort of marquee name of the evening was none other than Robert Pinsky former US poet laureate reading a newly commissioned work called the Hall that celebrated the opening of town hall and in particular its Great Hall to this community the piece was taken down for renovation during our renovation I should say but very soon it will return to our walls along with a copy of tonight's new commissioned designed to celebrate our first 20 years this piece tonight beginner and to set the stage for the next 20 beginner has been brought to life with the invaluable collaboration of my dear friend Allison Arbor and will be performed by Angelina Riley and Aidan kozo and by Susan Lauri herself and by every one of you you each have a role to play and not just in the metaphor of like life and stuff but actually in the metaphor of life and stuff that is the play we're about to do so you're all going to have a moment to race across the stage and by race we mean walking slowly carefully and with purpose and awareness of the fact that you're on a stage and if your house right which is this side you'll want to queue up along the wall and run down to here and you'll come up these stairs walk to the front of the stage just just to the left of the center stage have a moment with your flower and then you'll cross off to the other ramp meanwhile the folks have been queuing up on the right from house left will come up here and have the same thing just to the right here of the center line and then queue off that way it's that clear as mud you'll have people who know what they're doing walking at the front of the line so you'd be really hard to screw it up but we ask that you you take your flower to the edge of the stage you offer your flower to the world and then cross to the opposite side taking care of yourself and you'll get a cue and that's pretty much what I wanted to say oh when you've had your turn on the stage here we want you to return to your seats it's probably easiest that way you could freestyle it but that way you don't end up in somebody else's lap or something and then suzan-lori will have one more suggestion for you before we move on to the Q&A capisce and then when you're finished here I hope you'll join us downstairs in the Auto bar on the first floor of the building for a mixer and for an 8 p.m. concert featuring suzan-lori parks and Christian Konopka herb and starting at 8 o'clock tonight in our new forum space suzan-lori has traveled clear across the country to be a part of town halls homecoming festival celebrating our 20th anniversary season and as I mentioned the reopening in this building and if it's your first time at Town Hall welcome we don't typically give out flowers or make you log extra steps on your device every time I promise you but this new Town Hall has a bar space as I mentioned designed for pre and post-show gathering and we hope you'll make use of it for that matter that's useful information for a long time town hall friends too don't forget to build a stop at the Auto and your plans when you visit this place the idea is that you'll be able to make new friends and start up conversations with people that have just experienced something with you or are about to experience something and share theoretically share interests with you so while we're welcoming people I also know welcome any young folks in the audience tonight this season we're proud inaugurate a new policy all tickets to Town Hall produced programs are free to anyone 22 and under henceforth it's cool and that's with the that's courtesy Seattle's Office of Arts and Culture our homecoming calendar is packed with lectures concerts artists showcases pre and post event meetups keep an eye out for upcoming events such as tomorrow's short stories live session featuring work by local writers curated by Washington poet Laura laureate Claudia Castro Luna a showcase of queer performance makers with our festivals artist in residence hat lo a town hall youth takeover featuring concerts by young musicians rising musicians I should say and appearances by Naomi Klein Samantha power Marilyn Robinson I'm excited about that one I've decided about all of them but very excited Marilyn Robinson Ihram X candy Jonathan Safran for Chase Jarvis visit town hall-style dot org or pick up one of the cool program books on the way out tonight and apprise you of everything upcoming town halls work is only possible through generous sponsorship arts and culture here in particular is supported by four culture Arts Fund National Endowment for the Arts Seattle's Office of Arts and Culture KUOW and the taxpayers of Washington state support for our homecoming festival is courtesy boeing and alaska airlines but greater than all of these mighty corporations and agencies and state actors good and bad is the power of our members assembled in the audience tonight members of the reason that we're able to offer most programs here for just $5 many of them for free they're also the reason we're able to make our spaces available to other nonprofits for pennies frankly really no seriously they're heavily subsidized against other comparable venues in town the point is if you support broad community access to ideas and creativity we hope you will consider becoming a member and if membership sounds like too much of a commitment and you don't like commitments you can also support us by texting a donation to four four three two one the words town hall two four four three two one thank you for listening there ends the advertorial named Time Magazine's 100 innovators of the new for the next wave suzan-lori parks is one of the most acclaimed playwrights in American drama today she is the first african-american woman to the receive the Pulitzer Prize in drama she's a MacArthur Genius award recipient and was awarded the prestigious dish prize for excellence in the arts other grants and awards include the National Endowment for the Arts Rockefeller Foundation Ford Foundation it's a long list Parks's project 365 days 365 plays where she wrote a play a day for an entire year was produced by over 700 theaters worldwide including 52 companies right here in Seattle including town hall creating one of the largest grassroots collaborations in theatre history her adaptation of Gershwins Porgy and Bess won the 2012 Tony Award for Best revival of a musical other works include imperceptible mute abilities in the third Kingdom from 1989 produced locally I believe at new city theater in fact I don't believe I know at new city theater 1992's the death of the last black man in the whole entire world 1994 is the America play Venus from 1996 top dog underdog from 1999 father comes home comes home from the wars parts 1 2 & 3 and 2019 s white noise which won a 2019 Obie Award for playwriting please join me in welcoming Susan Lori parks hey Seattle Hey look at your beautiful flowers so wonderful thank you guys for inviting me to celebrate with you today this is a big deal for Seattle for Seattle Town Hall it's also a big deal for me because we're and I have been friends going way back to when he was the head of our Seattle hub for 365 days 365 plays and Seattle really turned out some wonderful theater way back then it was like ye 2000 3 or 4 or something like that but Seattle I think you guys were the only city to do it every week and you guys came together and had plays happening and all over in parks and laundromats on tops of buildings in empty swimming pools it was pretty amazing so I've loved you guys loved you guys before but definitely started loving you guys then tonight or this evening I have a million suggestions for you I know so a million suggestions so to get through a million suggestions in the time we have you know it's you're gonna hear some suggestions it's gonna require that I do something like this and first I do this any of you who are sensitive you know you're sensitive like that because a lot of the suggestions are going to be whizzing by at the speed of sound some of the suggestions will be whizzing by at the speed of speech all of the suggestions you'll be able to incorporate for good use in your daily life now also to travel through the world of a million suggestions I'll be doing some gestures you know so just you know what I'm talking about so when I do this it's the text right when I do this it's the sidebar or the access road or maybe it's a tangent that I've gotten off on to right if I do this or this it's the past and this would be of course right yeah the way back y'all got it the way back this would be the footnote this is the spirit usually if I hear voices they come from this side my husband is sitting right there Christian this is great so this is the spirit and again and this I'll really work to do before I do each loud noise gesture so if you if I do this you want it might want to plug your ears a little bit so I'll be telling you some stories from the book of my life is a writer because that's pretty much what I do I write songs I write plays and movies and TV shows and and essays and Jesus songs I play music we have a band which will be playing some music got later tonight I'll also maybe I'll tell you about our son who's 7 going on 8 yeah you know what that's like third grade is apparently very exciting these days after I'm done talking I'll talk a lot we'll see a little beautiful play that I wrote just for Seattle Town Hall it's called beginner and then we'll conclude my lecture and I'll take questions so if you all have Q&A about my work or your creative process or whatever I'm here ask away but first I'll get started with the question I get asked pretty much a lot the most I won the Pulitzer Prize while ago and a lot of people ask me what's it like being the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama and I'm like it's really great it's really really great it's really great yeah but it's also very humbling because as we all know you know we stand on the shoulders of giants we've heard that saying when we excel it's because of our own hard work yes but it's also because of the hard work of people who came before us right people who might have cleared the path that we are walking down people who might have paved that road that we walk down so when we honor this moment we also honor the people have come before and recently people on my mind you know in tazaki Shange who passed away recently Toni Morrison also passed away recently August Wilson who lived for a good long while in the town of Seattle folks like that helped me be the person and the writer that I am when our forefathers and our foremothers were dreaming of something better they were dreaming about us we we are lastly say in the tempest we are such stuff as dreams are made on us right here so with every step we take every action we make we represent as Aristotle said because right I'm a lot of drama as Aristotle said our characters are the result of our repeated actions all right so in theater and in life true that so I started writing a lot of people wonder when I started writing and I started writing in the fourth grade and I'm thinking of my son now he's in the third grade and he started yes I started sort of like I want to be a writer in the fourth grade but you can begin doing your thing at any age right you don't have to be a little kid to begin something wonderful Emerson says do your things so that I may know you right so today is an excellent day to start as Mahatma Gandhi said to be that change that you want to see in the world today's a great day to begin to be that change even if you've already achieved something right some of us have you know been lauded and awarded and have many many degrees and we think I know I've kind of gotten my wonderful bit if you still if there's something you still want to do I give you permission to do it I'm always giving myself permission but even if you if you've won prizes even if you've won the Pulitzer Prize I have this joke that's a joke and then I share it with you I always ask that when I get on stage to do a lecture I ask that they provide a chair or stool which I don't sit in because I don't think it's ever time to rest on your laurels you know the world is always the world is waiting for you to do that next wonderful thing and as I told the people who gathered earlier today for watch me work we're counting on you to pull us through that's why I flew over here from New York just to remind myself of that we're counting on you to pull us through and I figure if we got the corners then we got it made so we're in New York yeah holla got the cover the upper corner the Upper West corner but we're counting on you to pull us through if you haven't yet found your thing how do you find it you find it by following it following your gut you find it by listening in right you listen to your own far-out ideas so back to a story of my writing life my desire to be a writer started when my dad pretty much when my dad well it started with a piano which doesn't make any sense but my dad was in Vietnam he was a part of his life's work he was a career army officer right he did two tours of duty in Vietnam and when he came home from Vietnam from the war he and my mom had this crazy idea they had a vision of the American dream and their vision of the American dream had a soundtrack and the soundtrack was the sound of their children practicing scales on the piano so they took what little money they had they didn't have a lot of money and they bought a baby grand piano which sat in our various living rooms because every year we had to move so we carried we moved that baby grand piano all around the country all around in Europe - I loved playing the piano but what I loved more than playing the piano was sitting underneath the piano with the family dog now you must remember this was a time in history when children would go outside and play they don't so much anymore but back then kids would go outside and play and my brother and sister would be outside playing and I would be sitting under the piano and my mother would come looking for me because she didn't hear the sound of me practicing scales she'd find me underneath underneath the piano and she'd say what are you doing and I'd say I'm writing my novel I had a notebook and I was writing my novel now again you know it was fourth grade I had read two novels Harriet the Spy which is an amazing novel Hotel for Dogs which is also an amazing novel which is getting some traction again recently our son loves the novel Hotel for Dogs and I had read at a novel at which means that you'd pick up the illustrated classics off your parents shelf you know Illustrated Don Quixote and I read the captions underneath the drawings so I had you know two ish novels under my belt for Valentine's Day my parents had given me the James Baldwin book the fire next time for Valentine's Day I think I was like it's not all about fire you know I didn't have I had no idea what it was about but I look on the back of the book a lot and study his face the look on his face still I figured I'd read two plus novels I was going to be a writer I was going to write a novel too which brings us finally to suggestion number one suggestion number one entertain all your far-out ideas entertain all your far-out ideas invite them in sit them down at your table give them some delicious food and drink put on some music light some candles invite them to bring their friends over invite your far-out ideas to take root in your life invite them to bloom now what's an example of a far-out idea from my life 365 days 365 plays is a Freud idea I just said I'm gonna write a play a day for a whole year then I'm gonna go around the country and invite people to do them we won't make any money but we'll have fun it's a foreign idea top dog underdog was also a fart idea pretty much everything I've ever written is a fart idea as a result of a fart idea so most of the time your fart out ideas come to you right and they are met with this no it's not practical I don't know I'm too old what will the neighbors think my kids will laugh at me I'm not old enough like that so you're they're met with this kind of thing and I know because then they come to me and I'm like sure I'll do it like that so I'm entertain all your fart ideas and and but I started writing in the fourth grade after that after I started writing in the fourth grade what did I do I kept up with it right I continued and just because I'm standing up here talking this evening doesn't mean that the trip hasn't been like my son says easy peasy lemon squeezy the journey is blessed of course but not without stress it takes tenacity resilience I was in high school a long time ago and I took AP English class I think they still have AP English classes do they still do that Advanced Placement English right so I were wonderful essays but I was a lousy speller how that can that be a problem those of you who don't remember back in the days of time long lost before everybody had a personal computer before Microsoft took over the city they had such things like it was called BSC it was a time in history called BSC which means before spellcheck and those of us who were not naturally gifted spellers and were or doomed were doomed my English teacher in high school would tell me sound it out sound it out that was how they told us to spell didn't work doesn't work in English to sound out or it's every week my AP English teacher because back then if you were good speller you were considered to be intelligent and if you're a poor speller you were considered to be not so bright so she wanted to test us all every week she'd give us a list of words on Monday and by Friday we'd have it too you know we'd have a test and I'd study really hard and the test day would come around and Friday starts with F for a reason because I so the whole academic year of this this was a whole years worth of pain and suffering and finally you know I I kept my grades up in other classes so I managed to get into college Mount Holyoke College luckily they accepted me or someone raised yeah right it's it's one of the best well don't want to be biased or anything but it's kind of the best college in the country just saying but it's it's an amazing it's an amazing place and I went to my high school English teacher and for the debrief and you know the thing that they they have to give you a talk before you go out into the world and she said oh oh oh that's another thing about her she had an overbite it's how she talked like this and she said well miss parks congratulations on getting into Mount Holyoke College what are you intending on studying and I said well I'm gonna be a writer and she said well that's very interesting and she took out her grade book this huge ledger and she found my name the dust floating up to the ceiling she found my name and she read across my grades for those all those failed spelling tests and if my dreams and hopes had been a little red balloon she said well miss parks you shouldn't major in English and you should not be a writer because you're a very poor speller and I heard what she said and my response I said yes ma'am because you see I was raised my dad was in the army and we were brought up to say yes ma'am no ma'am and yes sir and no sir you know we were raised like that um I wasn't too upset I had a back-up plan I was really good in science and so I figured I was just gonna be the first black woman in space which doctor may jimson did it instead which was really good because I would have been totally bad at it but I went to college and I became a chemistry major which brings us to suggestion number two sometimes a well-meaning person who you respect and who wants you to succeed gives you some advice that's coming out of their mouth that does not jive with what's going on inside you you respect them they like you they're talking to you it doesn't make sense and when that happens just simply say no thank you to their advice I hadn't heard of that suggestion back then because that was in you know my past and Here I am now so I went to college and I took a lot of science courses they were cool I spent hours in the lab I wore a white lab coat and rubber gloves and a rubber apron and those goggles and we stood there mixing all kinds of really interesting chemicals not to diss science majors at all but I felt I'm like I'm dying this is what it feels like to be dead I had to take a science guy had to take an English class because they make you take English at Mount Holyoke you must be well-rounded so I had to go into the English class of course I didn't want to because I'd been told I was lousy at it and so I developed a justified a hatred of literature there sat in class like this and we read books like mmm to the lighthouse has anybody read Virginia Woolf to the lighthouse you have you've read it you've read it can you tell me what it's about can you explain it to me you can you can huh you're doing Jack with gestures hmm what about oh that's beautiful oh now there see I could have used that eighty seven years ago when I was in college difficult to commute I can only repeat parts of the novel it will be fine it won't be fine will we go to the lighthouse I don't know mrs. Ramsay dies in parentheses someone is knitting Lily Briscoe paints a something or others she puts a shape in the right place they go to the lighthouse they give the socks to the blight housekeepers boy the end I like I said I can only repeat lines from the knob I can't I haven't I don't think I've digested it I don't think I wrote a good paper on it it certainly wasn't spelled well that I know but I fell in love with that novel don't know why I absolutely fell in love with that novel I felt like I read that novel that I couldn't understand and I couldn't be eloquent about but I felt like you know flowers flowers that turn their faces to the Sun you know yeah you know heliotropism I felt like I had turned back to the thing that I loved you know I had turned back Virginia Woolf I would say help me remember myself remember myself put my limbs my body myself back together so the I was in college I'd fallen back in love with literature and so that little dream of being a writer started to grow again maybe I could try No so what I did is I decided I'm just gonna take some more English classes I'm gonna be a writer I said one day to myself no one heard me that's the same thing I do now 87 years later I decide to be a writer every single day I wake up in the morning sometimes I say it aloud sometimes I say it silently to myself while I'm meditating I'm gonna be a writer today and it takes that kind of commitment in my life to be a writer you know after a certain number of years we figure hey come on you've been doing it for so long don't you just coast there's no coasting in life there's no cruise control you know it's a relationship just cuz you get married or have someone who says I love you you gotta love that person every day right you got to make that love anew every day you have to commit yourself to the thing you love whether it's a whether you're a parent or a dentist or a chemist or a doctor or a pilot or an accountant or whatever you know you have to take your vows and renew your vows every day so being a writer like that it's um it's it's a continual daily practice of saying yes yes I'll try I'll do my best and I try every single day I was telling the the folks in watch me work even if it's just for five minutes of writing you know now we you know typewriter or computer you know even if it's not good you know I was thinking the other week to some of my students back in New York and whether or not you believe in God or what you want to call the spirit but they say there's a phrase god is good you know this is a sidebar by the way God is good they don't say God is perfect right so what do we try to be perfect for just be good you know in our house we say my husband's from Germany we say good good no good good no good enough you know just try something try something so that's what I started doing way back College and I was not not the best writer in any of my writing classes ever but still wonderful things started to happen and one is I didn't have to take any more chemistry classes which I thought was really good I would have blown up something I got to spend a lot of time writing and reading which I loved and I got I heard when that there was a very famous wonderful writer who was going to be teaching writing at a college down the road from from Mount Holyoke College and I was it was suggested that I apply to his class and it was James Baldwin he was he was he was he was you know that wanting to hang out in the Pioneer Valley take a break from living in France hang out in the Pioneer Valley and teach a creative writing class he told us that he had never taught a creative writing class before which is the spoiler alert to my application process because I was one of the 15 students who got in 15 of us at a library table at Hampshire College right down the road and I remember that first I remember Valentine's Day 10 years before when I was in fourth grade my parents giving me this book the fire next time all I knew of James Baldwin still hadn't read the book now thanks but I had been studying his face on the dust jacket and so I was like okay this amazing he's gonna come in he's gonna be huge he's gonna fill the whole doorway and he came in and he was he's very slight of very finely built he's about this tall was about this tall I'm fine limbs very beautiful a head he looked like a head like a cute tip swab like an alien eyes that could see through your best and he sat at the head of the table and conducted class every Monday after class each week he would invite us for drinks you know it wasn't in a weird way it was he liked to socialize and he would say come to the local bar or whatever it was back then and had drinks with Jimmy Jimmy I never called him Jimmy I call always called him mr. Baldwin I never went for drinks I was like 18 I don't know I was like I'm not going to drink alcohol with mr. Baldwin but you know it was it was a beautiful thing it's very generous very kind when it was my turn so it was a short story writing class if you can imagine so there we are 15 people these are bright brilliant young writers from the valley there were three from UMass three from Smith three from Amherst three from Hampshire and three from Mount Holyoke he's cool the cool people they had all written beautiful short stories I'd written some short stories and I thought that my short stories would be better if I performed them in class so I got in the habit when it was my turn which happened ever you want to know three or four weeks or so I would stand up at the library table and read my short stories aloud and kind of act them out and this went on all semester nobody in the class said you're crazy stop doing that nobody said that I was really into it I thought it made the story sound better after one class mr. Baldwin took me aside and he said um miss parks have you ever thought about writing for the theater no I gotta say sidebar like I didn't I didn't like the theater no no see theater like tamai I mean I love novels and poetry and I mean Shakespeare but Shakespeare wasn't theater right Shakespeare was Shakespeare Yeah right okay but I would look at the theater people you know the people who were theater majors I can still see them in my mind's eye across the green they're gallivanting but they are having a good time wearing like funny hats and talking and I mean they were all American right it was an Americans good they're all saying darling darling like that I'm like those people I'm a writer okay but anyway yeah so suggestion number two is just say no to advice that doesn't jive with you and suggestion number three is sometimes someone it's very tricky sometimes so many respect who really thinks a lot about you and really wants you to succeed gives you some advice that actually does jive with something that's going on inside you and when that happens you take their advice which is what I did and I started writing my very first play on the bus ride home from class just crawling it in my notebook not know I know what I was doing but figurine hey you know I'll give it a go yeah mr. Baldwin suggested I try playwriting and that's still what I'm doing today trying playwriting it's the same activity sidebar there's a wonderful teacher I do a lot of yoga if we want to talk about yoga we can in the QA but there's a wonderful teacher who says his name is ideal Vala who says you don't want to spend enormous amounts of energy climbing the ladder of success only to find that you've propped your ladder up against the wrong wall and we asked ourselves how do we know what's the right ball that looks like the right wall it's dangle that's beautiful that could be the wall or og know it maybe it's that one how do we know which wall is the right wall right spend more time listening to your own voice suggestion number 1620 told you practice listening listen to what they call that small still voice within tune into your own guts and I mission practice listening because people are always asking where I get my ideas from and of course I'm out in the world all the time and get a lot of ideas from from being in the world and being awake in the world I also get a lot of ideas from listening in to my own guts that inner listening like William Faulkner said I listen to the voices that's the kind of listening I'm talking about so here's another here's an example yeah of listen listening to the far out ideas and tonight I'll sing a song that I wrote for this play but for example I was in a canoe I was out in Nantucket I'm not sure which is east or west but I'm gonna pretend it's over there oh that way the way the East is that way awesome so Nantucket right you can imagine it's like this way this way this way Nantucket you know what I'm talking about in a canoe in a canoe so I'm in then I mean out in Nantucket in a canoe with a friend paddling in the front and I'm paddling in the back and I say out loud to no one I'm gonna write a play that's gonna be a riff on The Scarlet Letter I'm gonna call it a ha ha like that for our idea coming in and then I go huh well so we we continue droid my friend did not laugh it didn't stop me Brian row row row you get back to the shore and you you know you're walking in the mud and I'm thinking that could be kind of cool right so what do I have to do now game plan right what do I have to do to write a riff on The Scarlet Letter call a I have to read The Scarlet Letter yeah so I did that and then I then I went ahead and then I went ahead and wrote that play the scart letter which is a beautiful it came out came out really well and that the wonderful thing about it is that I started writing the Scarlet a and it was so hard to write that long story short it turned into two plays one is called in the blood and one is called The Scarlet Letter so I actually got two plays out of that that far-out idea here's another suggestion suggestion number 1621 make sure that your fear does not erode your faith make sure that your fear does not erode your faith suggestion number 1622 mantras if you heard the word mantras right I was in a yoga class the other week and they were talking about how mantras are mind vaccines not if you're an anti backs are just go with it for just a minute because it doesn't involve you know anything but just thoughts mind vaccines and there are a lot of wonderful mind vaccine that I'll talk about a little bit later but questions this up does anyone here have a meditation practice 1220 good nice well done well done I always everywhere I go every time I talk to folks I encourage us all to either renew or celebrate or start begin our meditation practice it's like I was telling the folks and watch me work it's you can go to a fancy place and give them a lot of money and they'll give you a mantra and get you started if that's the way you'd like to go that's your choice you can also just get a timer a simple kitchen timer and first thing in the morning instead of checking your newsfeed no no you can check in with this newsfeed which is sitting quietly either in a chair or on the floor if you're into that kind of thing right setting the timer to maybe 10 minutes maybe 20 minutes and just breathing in and out thoughts come and go our minds are very busy places just breathe in and out if you need a mantra just the sound of your breath is the mantra that you were given at birth you can use that or if you want to say something like thank you that's a nice one you know what meditation does what it's done for me is it allows me to think more clearly and to recover more quickly from the dumb stuff that's a word choice the the stuff that's going on in the world sometimes it makes me wanna holler I holler and then I can recover and just and just keep on with with my with my day and be grateful for the things that are beautiful instead of obsessing on the things that are not and this meditation is not a substitute for for for political action we know that too so we're not just going to sit on our cushions we're going to do like folks back in the did you know you pray with your feet by walking and being active great suggestion number 1730 for your breath is your divine voice take some time every day to listen to it even if you've only got 30 seconds a day maybe that's all the time you need okay my yoga teacher says when you don't feel like you have any time that's exactly when you should meditate okay so if you've got a cramp day and we're all very busy but see if you can take some time meditation is a built-in mindfulness app oh that's right I did a talk 6-8 months ago to at Yousefi does anyone know what you Safa is the United States Air Force Academy where if you've ever want to hear yes ma'am and yes ma'am in a loud thunderous voice you go to you Safa and stand in front of them and they snap to attention like you've never seen and why was at the Air Force Academy because they invited me to talk with them and say hi because they believe that they need to learn from lots of different kinds of people doing lots of different kinds of things and some of my friends heard I was going and I like you got to be kidding and I'm like no I'm going because these kids wanted me to talk with them but I tried to talk with him about meditation and so I started calling it a built-in mindfulness app to combat stress and we had really beautiful conversations about about about meditation so a sidebar tangent neuroplasticity which most of you know what that is developing your brain we're all told that we're born you know at a certain point in our lives we're rigid and fixed you know like by the time you I don't know what people say eight or ten or fifteen or twenty one or something that's it but things like meditation help you stay flexible in your mind and one thing we need to get through the difficult days is maximum flexibility right that's another thing I came all the way here to remind us all about Oh back to my story so my teacher James Baldwin cuz I believe I feel like he is my teacher I didn't go to grad school after I graduated from college I figured I'd had a wonderful experience with a brilliant teacher my teacher James Baldwin steered me towards playwriting she was great he taught me also how to conduct myself in the presence of the spirit how to conduct myself in the presence of the spirit now what does that mean you treat the spirit as an honored guest right you're welcoming to all your far out ideas that's how you conduct yourself in the presence of the Spirit and you're respectful to the spirit as you would be respectful in the presence of a powerful volcano which you guys have here that way that way so that way they're all around thank you you guys have a lot of volcanoes here so you know what that's like and you're attentive to the spirit as you would be attentive to your sweetheart to your lover how to conduct yourself in the presence of the spirit and he taught me that every day every one of us we are always in the presence of the spirit and yeah I had to remind the air for students and I have to remind myself that the flowers don't want us to hate anybody and the trees don't want us to hurt anybody and the water says if you listen to the water it's seen a lot of things but the water is saying come on in everybody and the Sun shines for everybody if we could listen to that more so fast forward really fast I graduated from college I moved to London for a while because I thought this theatre thing they have a lot of theater in London but I go over there and see some theatre came back to New York City did not go to grad school did odd jobs in New York City took typing course I was not only was I allows he speller house a lousy typist so I had to take a typing course at the Betty Owens secretarial College where I learned how to type very fast and I had this kilt because that was the fashion back a hundred years ago for young women at Mount Holyoke we work kilts right I mean they were cute you know so I had this kilt which was the only like nice thing in my closet and haven't go to work every day in this red kilt of course I'd have to tie my hair back so that I would look presentable as that was the code word at the temp agency where I worked she had a tie her hair back we're a kilt and work all day for lawyers who would yell at you hurry up I mean what was so important who knows anyway that was the day and then in the evening I'd go to the East Village which was cool and all my friends who hung out there they were all poets and stuff and they were cool and they were all black and they were you know sunglasses 24/7 and they drank absinthe or whatever and smoked unfiltered cigarettes and they looked at me and they were like oh you're never gonna be an artist you're not cool suggestion number six thousand three hundred and ninety three don't worry about being cool being cool is overrated and besides you'll miss all the fun I'm saying that to you because you look like you're a young person remember that don't worry about being cool that's I'm gonna use an adult word cool this alright you everything you have everything you need you have and we tell my son this all the time but we tweeds we think advertising makes us think that we have to go out and buy that special something to make us wonderful it's a sham you have it inside already you know I have to remind myself about that all the time but we have we have everything we need okay inside already move to New York City I got my first big break in the business I self produced my own play so that's you know how I got my first big break I was hanging out I would write so I work during the day for the lawyers hang out with the poets until late at night then go home and write and get up in the morning do it all over again and I had this play that I'd written and I was hanging out at night in the East Village in a bar called the gas station and we walked by there the other week it's not there anymore they tore it they tore it down they put up a high-rise or something but it was a gas station it was a bar that used to be a gas station and it had no furniture it had one green couch on which all kinds of things happens and it had lights it had Christmas lights that was the only lighting it had and I was sitting on the couch one night and the bartender / owner / artists and residents Oswaldo from Argentina I said you know I want to do a play here they said okay we've never done plays here but if I'll go out and buy some chairs and you could maybe buy some lights and I said got it it was my first show great so I went out I took my money my hard-earned temp word-processing money and I bought a whole bunch of lights back then when there was a hardware store in every corner and you could go into the hardware store and you could buy those clip lights you know so I bought a whole bunch of those and then I got the yards and yards of yellow industrial-strength extension cords and I went into the bar and I clipped up these lights put light bulbs in them of course and then I connected them all with yellow extension cords and they met in the back of the stage and I put like a a piece of furniture in the back of the stage you couldn't see because I hid behind the piece of furniture because we had lighting cues and so I hid behind the piece of furniture and while the actors were on stage doing my play I was hiding behind a piece of furniture and lights up was this and lights down was this and so I was doing this for like an hour and a half it was beautiful it was um let's see we ran for three days which was the standard run for an awful awful off-broadway play some people came let's see the bar owner Oswaldo came and my mom and my dad and my sister and the homeless man who lived outside yeah that was kind of it he was cold outside so he came inside to keep warm I had arrived I was so proud of myself because I had a play on in New York City and I feel always the same way now like yay you know I wasn't sighs tell my students like they sit around and wait for I don't know who Steven Spielberg or whomever ryan coogler to call them up and invite them on some wonderful artistic adventure and I just remind them that you can suggestion number 700 7777 as my dad says you make your luck you make your luck and so I started writing plays I've continued after that big break you know came more of the same and then some slightly bigger productions venus in the blood screenplays for Spike Lee Like Girls 6 working for Oprah writing a novel the film adaptation of native son that was just on HBO fast-forwarding but it's always been just the daily activity of showing up at my writing desk you know I think of the awards and prizes that we accumulate and the very first one I ever got was in first grade we were in Texas in first grade and I got an award for perfect attendance and it was not lost on me even as I was a six year older that the key was just to show up and I do the same the same same same oh the suggestions are out of order suggestion number 88 courage is contagious suggestion number 81 if you feel like you're getting bread crumbs that might be tough but bread crumbs are enough to get you home suggestion number oh these five suggestions from the civil rights movement remember I taught talking about the mind vaccines these mantras from the civil rights movement suggestion number nine each one teach one suggestion number twelve lift others as you climb suggestion number 63 is eyes on the prize suggestion number 144 ain't nobody going to turn me around and my favorite one suggestion number 953 this little light of mine I'm gonna let it shine and you know if it worked for folks back in the day it can work for us today suggestion number nine hundred nine thousand two hundred and sixty as Pema Chodron said she's a wonderful Buddhist nun you guys know Pema Chodron right she's pretty pretty cool I love hearing her lecture and she always reminds us to smile at your fear smile at your fear just as a spiritual exercise right suggestion number 68 from Eleanor Roosevelt which I quoted today and watch me work earlier today you must do the thing that you think you cannot do Eleanor Roosevelt who we remember allowed Mary and Anderson to sing made it possible for Mary Anderson Marian Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial because the Daughters of the American Revolution would not let Marian Anderson sing in their Hall you must do the thing that you think you cannot do and you know what that moment is when you think I can't do that when you clench up that's exactly where maybe you need to try I wrote top dog underdog I started it in 1999 on the 6th of January and I finished on the 9th of January it was fast to write and I don't trip on that I mention it because it reminds me of suggestion number 8 which is don't trip on something because it just might trip you up and if we want to talk about top dog underdog we can do that more in the QA a lot of people ask me about that but what happens was I wrote it very quickly then I called up my friend Bonnie Metzger who was a producer at the Public Theater and I said Bonnie I just wrote a new play it just happened can I have a reading of it she said sure the Public Theater was willing to do it to produce the play eventually and then finally it found its way after 9/11 which was devastating to New York but we got back on our feet the play found its way to Broadway and we opened on a Sunday night and the next day it was a wonderful opening and the next day they announced the Pulitzer Prizes and I had won and the sound in my head was everything either slowed down or sped up I'm still not sure but I think it was the sound of all these this information passing suggestion number five be a theater of one people ask me a lot of times people ask me what are we supposed to do or what are some of the things that we can do in times like these difficult times number one you know no what we always know right times have been difficult for a long time they didn't start recently they've been difficult for a long time but what can we do in times like these and I one of my suggestions one thing I try to do is be a theater of one be a theatre of one so every day when you wake up and get out of bed a play starts and you are the main actor in the play and you are going to set an example for behavior because if anything we are learning from each other constantly we're constantly learning how to behave by watching each other and listening to each other regardless of who you voted for underneath all the the hatred and fear is my hope that we have access to the angels of our better nature that's so qualified you can hear that it's almost like I'm speaking German I hope that we have access to the angels of our better nature but what you can do out there is you can be a theater of one every day you put on a play you're the star of the show the world is your stage and you're going to show us how to be beautiful and oftentimes it's it's you're tested you know things don't work out your way somebody cuts you off in traffic but you're going to show you're going to be that example you can make a gesture in the direction of the good suggestion number 888 thousand 888 practice radical inclusion not just inclusion like this for your friends right but radical inclusion I'll do it this way radical inclusion you see the the shoulder joint it's slightly beyond your shoulder joint it's like this and this gesture can be reserved for people who are not like us it's a spiritual practice you could practice that you can start practicing it in front of say the television or the computer screen it might be painful you might not like it but it's for you it's not for them whoever you however you define them right it's something for you moving slightly outside your comfort zone and seeing yourself in the other I know it's like there's nothing that there we're so far yeah they're nothing like me I disagree I disagree we are more like each other than we'd like to believe all of us suggestion number 475 Oh watch me work so that's something we did it this afternoon downstairs in the library space I think what's called it's a lot of fun I also do it live online it's totally free and it's about your work so if ever you have a question that you'd like to ask me about your work you can go on live I live stream it's on Mondays how loud I do it live in the lobby of the Public Theater and we livestream so you can tweet in and talk to me and really really really a fun thing to do and it helps you get your work done suggestion number three hundred forty thousand eight hundred and eighty-five oh this is a hard one when in doubt say thank yeah that's kind of a dicey one suggestion number 45 take the stairs suggestion number eight thousand nine hundred and forty four Oh keep the drama on the stage yeah you know what I'm talking about we have a song in my house we don't need no unnecessary drama so we do that a lot so keep the drama on the stage suggestion number 99 when you get an award regardless of the specifics of the award know that you've been called upon to increase the amount of kindness and compassion in the world and lots of folks think that getting an award gives them license to be unkind you know I'm better than you now because I got this this thing right actually they need to read the fine print on the award because the opposite is true when you've been summoned to stand before others you've been summoned right you're been someone to represent the human race I won lots of prizes and if you've made it this far you've been prized you are prize if you've made it this far in your life you're extremely lucky right and all of this who have been given those this kind of prize are here to to spread the love and increase the peace right suggestion number 12,293 oh you are the ambassadors of your race my parents used to say that to me when I was a child you are the ambassador's of your race because where we lived we were like in Germany and that was before there were a lot of you know there was no MTV or anything and there wasn't a lot a lot of integration there but we walk in places and people would stare at us or in Vermont I know yeah I know you laugh are you from Vermont the Champlain Valley Fair in the early 1970s I went with some friends and people surrounded me and began to pet me Vermont I they'd very still and live to tell the tale but you are the ambassador's of your race which means that these days it means you were the ambassador's of the human race yeah and by bringing it you know bring something wonderful right suggestion number five hundred fifty five thousand and five hundred and twelve is always realize the value of kindness and this next suggestion suggestion five hundred fifty five thousand five hundred thirteen is a new play called beginner now the action of this play starts right here right now where do I begin why are you asking just curious all of a sudden you're just curious I've been curious for a long time but I never thought the question that I asked you is a question one should ask really because it's a question that has an answer that could oh I don't know start a fight or a party or parade or a wedding or a vision or a series or a portal or a race a race you heard me just then hundreds of people hundreds of people just like you race across the stage it's optional of course don't feel pressured you're part of this whether you cross the stage or not it's as every single person in Seattle Washington also known as the Emerald City every single person and of course everywhere in the world too right we're at this very moment oh this is beautiful I'm gonna pause for the stage directions just to watch this is absolutely gorgeous oh say every single person from everywhere right at this very moment is racing out of doors or racing to the gym you can keep your flowers if you want okay don't feel like you can hold on to them that's right or they're racing as part of a sport or maybe they're late for a bus or they're racing to catch a taxi or they're racing to catch a boat or a plane or maybe they're racing to try to cross a river maybe they're racing to change their mind oh thank you hi they're racing and they're running maybe trying to cross a river or a border or a see everybody racing and running everybody running on something or high or toward something they're running from something and also right everybody is running something yeah we're all running something we're all running something aren't we and we're all on some kind of we're all on some kind of path you can have them back after boom thanks brother and we're all we're not only on some kind of path but as I see you up close everybody you guys are pretty you guys are really nice so I mean I don't mean I don't mean that an inappropriate way I mean it in a kind of just a like you guys are nice to look at so thank you for being attractive thank you for showing up oh thanks thank you for being so wonderful thank you for participating I have never cried giving a speech like this but I think I just my you drunk not want to be professional but your presence does move on to tears Seattle is that why it rains here so much you guys are so moving thank you it's beautiful people oh dear I still have to read the stage directions oh yeah and every person is carrying a flower now what kind of flower well if we're lucky that's going to be the flower of our own choosing and the people racing they know that from this very moment when you see these people racing across the stage I want you to know from this moment things for you are going to be better because we're all on the road to recovery and you don't have to run because you know you're already there the action of this play takes place on this stage and it also takes place in the stage in the unused venue the stage inside your head right and the action of this play takes place over and over and over and over and over again which means that it's a forever play Oh am i getting off the subject am i getting off the path no not at all yay back to our play [Applause] the human race exactly you've got something to teach me I can smell it go on okay right um well okay let's see um we know we know that there is no I in team but did you know there is a me in enemy good job thank you did you did you come all this way to learn that no but you came all this way to tell it to me okay how do you do that do what get under the surface of me get inside my head you open the door and let me in you flew me into town and open the door and let me in so here I am I'm here and I'm in your head deeply curled up in there giving you a healing hug thank you that's what I do pretty much it's like the common thread running through my output Wow deep what was your question which one the one up there at the top of the page or back there in the past the question you had about where do I begin I have never ever told an actor how to say a line but it would be really great if you could say it just like you did earlier you know at the top of the play where do I begin exactly where do I end good questions and what about the others what others where over there who there you they don't look like me no not at all mmm and I'm off yeah and they've got scrunch I've got perk and I'm all wet huh there you there you want right here right there and over there - couldn't be it's true so everything is part of everything one thing expressing itself an infinite variety bingo should I ask what else is there no don't ask and that's the whole game of life in one moment yep should we sing a song let's you guys have proven yourself so brilliantly we're gonna ask you to do a little group singing which is part of a song that I wrote for you guys I'm we're gonna sing it tonight with the band but right now we're gonna try to sing the chorus part okay now I'll sing it for you and then we'll try we're going around and around and around and around and around and around again we're going around and around and around and around we're going around and around and around and around and around and around again we're going around and around and around and around we're going around and around and around and around and around and around again we're going around and around and around and around we're going around around and around and around and around and around we're going around and around and around and around we're going around and around and around and around and around and around again we're going around and around and around and around well done suggestion number one million is enjoy the trip enjoy the trip thank you well done [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so do the Q&A if anybody has any questions for me if you want your flower back you could come these are so beautiful just Q&A about anything or nothing or any answers I'll ask questions these are for the questions but I would love the origins story or hear more about the live stream and watching you work how that got started sure yeah sure like how you do it and who you do it with yeah sure yeah sure watch me work so those of you who are there this afternoon you know just for like you know cuz I'm gonna repeat myself but about ten years ago I was hanging out with a friend Jesse Alec who works at the Public Theater and Jesse is a producer writer performer and he said hey SLP I'm producing a festival of writers and we have a lot of work from young writers and we're really interested in getting a play from an older writer and I was like actually I cried later no but I am I was like well I was too busy of course so I said hey man I'd love to help out I'm Way too busy but and then my mouth opened and the words started coming out of my mouth and I was not controlling them I was just like the channel for these words I said but I tell you what I will do I will put a desk on stage and bring my timer and I will invite for 20 minutes I will invite the audience to create action of a play with me we'll all work together and then after that we'll do Q&A about their work which will be the dialogue of the play and I'll call it watch me work and I've been doing it in the lobby for 10 years in the lobby of the Public Theater I invite it's up to everybody and it's free I tell people it's just like Shakespeare in the Park except it's not Shakespeare and it's not in the park but it is free and we talk about the work of the students the people who come so it's not me talking about my work it's me asking you like how's your work going today like that and we'll talk like that and we live stream on how around h o w lr o UND which is a service provided by get the college wrong a cop Emerson I was gonna say who said that who knew yeah you know where Emerson College and they're awesome there and they they host us and allow us to reach lots of people we have people tweet in from all over the country and all over the world asking talking it's a wonderful community so yeah it's fun yes what's the origin of the walking ritual that you had do you is that from a church thing or just from out of it's any kind of memory that you have what inspired you to have the whole group get up and do that was directed by where harmony it's I mean I said you know people across the stage but but you had him like crossing so beautifully I mean what we did you know we're said hey come come and celebrate with us and maybe you could write a little something so I wrote a little something and I wrote it for aware and I wrote it for all you guys and on all of us you know but just I I wanted everybody is a part of it you know so I wanted everybody to have an experience of just crossing through the light you know and being and just participating as they as they would like to it was very moving though cuz I'd never done it you know it's experimental theater you know it's like I'd never actually done it I just wrote it and emailed it to you yeah that's right last week I wrote it actually like a month ago but I was like correcting the typos it's we're taking a long time so that's all but I never actually experienced it experience it's it's it's an amazing I wish you guys had been in here just to see beautiful people cross across the stage holding flowers I was like wow so it was fun thank you for joining in hey I want to thank you for alone me in your circle this is a surprise with me because I had not planned to come at all my writing friends and sisters that come to meet you and I am honored thank you thank you so much that's very kind thank you thank you hey yeah [Music] I want to be heard yeah a dozen how long how long does it take you to like sometimes I'll write a song in 45 minutes and then it'll take me four and a half years to write one and they're short little things sometimes but talk to me about your process those are the creative process sometimes it's fast and sometimes it's not you know or like what is it in in gypsy that musical you got to take the rough with the smooth you know she said I'm trying only musicals I really love that was what I said Stein daily which is it's not time daily but she was surprisingly good in that surprisingly out ooh you know I mean I didn't expect it from her that so oh no yeah and I always thought finger Cagney and Lacey yeah are your songs always burst in your place or are they sometimes you know a lot of them are but more and more now that I'm playing out with the band a lot of them I just write for the band I just sit there and come up with the groove and and and write him that way so and it's interesting my husband Christian was telling me reminded me the other day he said the more you gig with the band the fewer songs you have in your plays because basically my first thing the playing the piano I'm a musician yeah yeah you get in the theater you know I got in a theater and loved it but you know I think my first thought was writing songs but sometimes I take it and that's a test to your practice sometimes you write something in this really quick and then sometimes it'll take ages to write something and it doesn't mean one is better or worse than the other do you find yourself writing now that you have a band a little bit like oh so-and-so will be would do a great sax solo here or something like I just I just you know I'm just like what do I want to play around with you know but I want to sit down but I wanted to say that I don't know a lot about your history but when you stepped out and started talking I went oh she's kind of like the love child of Lily Tomlin and James Baldwin and then you started talking about Baldwin I well anyway that's an interesting love affair sorry I don't mean to shift the tone here but what are the stories that scare you and how do you find ways to smile at them it's funny that that lot the stories are scare you because that's a I mean it is also I've heard a suggestion of a prompt from a writer she she says you know right right about what scares you you know and I go I don't know you know but little stupid things scare me so everything you know like coming hit talk I mean well it's weird there's one fear I don't have is like public speaking which I hear that people have you know I'm a ham so it's like now I can get in front of people go out but you know I think I think hatred scares me you know and trying to get underneath that you know and and trying to smile at people who give you these looks like ooh they're angry at me for like no reason or a reason but it's not really a reason you know and and trying to get through that when you see people who really like they don't like you or your kind you know and trying to just go I'm gonna keep on keeping on you know because I know we all no matter what we look like on the surface we all come from some kind of people who kept on keep so I draw from that you know as much as I can and lean on my friends and my family you know thank you good question we can shift a tone I can go you know SLP can go doc hi hi you mentioned Shakespeare earlier you quoted a little bit from The Tempest earlier today I met someone named Ariel and I said full fathom five my father lies if his bones are coral made and that song Ariel song really lives in my head The Tempest lives in my head a lot I just want to sort of open the door to saying anything you felt like about the tempest or just Shakespeare in general I mean the thing I mean I love Shakespeare as a writer you know and I think his writing has taught me I mean there are hundreds of writers that I love of course it's not to the exclusion of other writers but his writing has taught me so much about character dramatic structure you know how to make a line sing how to write economically all those things that we need as as writers whether you write plays or not you know so I just say you know and sometimes you know it's it might be kind of pricey to go to a Shakespeare play or you got a if you're in New York waiting line in the park and that if you don't have a job or how do not you know how you do it but it's you can always sort of go to the library and read the plays oh it's just a great way to form to strengthen your imagination I think thank you Thanks we have time for these two questions sorry I was trying to priam to you go ahead um hi I love your work um and I just wanted to ask okay I kind of have like good a real quick um what do you find empowerment in empowerment and like what empowers you oh my second question was just like if there was one thing that you could change about like the theatre industry and the world that we work in what would it be or just the world that we're working in like if you can only answer one if I can only answer one what do I find empowering I find people who are kind very empowering to be kind to someone you don't know you know right I mean to be like ky2 you know when you go to get your groceries you're kind to the checkout counter person you know I mean I mean sure we're always like we've got to be kind to the people who we got to be kind to the important people but when you're just kind to just people just whomever right that I find very very empowering that can make my whole week just someone making some sweet conversation you know like that that I found very very empowering I mean that the power of kindness is we just should always remember that and if I could change one thing about the river you know what it is I get I get a time machine and we'd all like The Avengers or whatever that movie was I just and we'd all go back in time yeah yeah and we'd all go vote yeah all of us for the right woman yeah that's just what I'm saying I'm just not naming any names or anything I mean not the wrong woman the right woman the woman who's smart and was so is so qualified for the job that a whole bunch of people in this country decided to hate on her I'm just gonna say that thank you so yeah all right thanks for being here I also have two questions which might be related might not the first is just idle curiosity but I'll ask them both yeah one is that after day like today do you like curl up in a ball for a week or do you just spring out of bed in the morning tomorrow and do this again and really my deeper question is when you spring out of bed what is if it kicks your brain into gear and puts you into motion what is that creative force takes your brain into gear that gets you moving that that creates what you're doing right here that that is a seat of that what is it that drives that force yeah so yes so after a day like today which is not over yet because we have a gig to do tonight what do i do do i car laughing yeah I know it's so funny it's it's I know it's a joke so I'm right now right now yeah right now but not right at this very moment I'm the showrunner for a NatGeo of limited series on Aretha Franklin so on Monday I'll teach my NYU class in the morning and then go run my writers room in the afternoon so that's the day that's my day so that's kind of just the thing so what you know so to spring out of bed you know it's awfully like I'm gonna be late for my class or my kid you know Durham our son has mommy daddy's used to bring out of bed you know I mean so there's no I I really work to focus on what's good and things that I can do something about and the things that I cannot do something about I really work to just you know give love to people I mean hmm yeah like you guys because you're beautiful thanks on behalf of all of us thank you for thank you for traveling all this way across the country to share that healing hug and I hope you will stick around at eight o'clock tonight to hear suzan-lori and Christian go out on a limb and make music and tie off this big day can't thank you enough for being with us and we'll see well soon [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Town Hall Seattle

Views: 2,658

Rating: 4.8048782 out of 5

Keywords: Suzan-Lori Parks top dog under dog, Suzan-Lori Parks the american play, Suzan-Lori Parks in the blood, Suzan-Lori Parks white noise, Suzan-Lori Parks elements of style, Suzan-Lori Parks stage directions, Suzan-Lori Parks plays, Suzan-Lori Parks quotes, top dog under dog, the american play, in the blood, elements of style, stage directions, Suzan-Lori Parks, Suzan-Lori, plays, seattle, Town Hall

Id: dkYDTS4fzjU

Length: 94min 29sec (5669 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 18 2019