"By turns philosophical and playful, lyrical and earthy, [i]Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3), swoops, leaps, dives and soars, reimagining a turbulent point in American history through a cockeyed contemporary lens . . . The finest work yet from this gifted writer."—[i]The New York Times"Thrilling. . . . A masterpiece . . . A story that engages the deepest possible issues in the most gripping possible ways."—[i]New YorkOffered his freedom if he joins his master in the ranks of the Confederacy, Hero, a slave, must choose whether to leave the woman and people he loves for what may be another empty promise. As his decision brings him face to face with a nation at war with itself, the ones Hero left behind debate whether to escape or wait for his return, only to discover that for Hero, freedom may have come at a great spiritual cost. A devastatingly beautiful dramatic work, [i]Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2, & 3) is the opening trilogy of a projected nine-play cycle that will ultimately take us into the present.[b]Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play [i]Topdog/Underdog in 2002. Her other plays include [i]The Book of Grace, [i]In the Blood, [i]Venus, [i]The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, [i]Fucking A, [i]Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom and [i]The America Play. In 2007 her [i]365 Days/365 Plays was produced at more than seven hundred theaters worldwide. Parks is a MacArthur Fellow and the Master Writer Chair at the Public Theater.
"In the Blood is an extraordinary new play…It is truly harrowing…we cannot turn away, and we do not want to. The play strikes us as Hawthorne claimed his first glimpse of the scarlet letter struck him, with «a sensation not altogether physical yet almost so, as of a burning heat, as if the letter were not of red cloth but of red-hot iron.’»—Margo Jefferson, The New York TimesThe playwright who «has burst through every known convention to invent a new theatrical language, like a jive Samuel Beckett, while exploding American cultural myths and stereotypes along the way [John Heilpern, New York Observer and Vogue],» has written two haunting riffs on Hawthorne’s The Scarlett Letter: In the Blood and Fucking A.Hester La Negrita of In the Blood is an unapologetic mother of five illegitimate children—"my treasures, my five joys"—who practices writing the alphabet to help herself "one day get a leg up. The letter A is as far as she gets. Hester Smith of Fucking A works the only job available—abortionist to the lower class, in order to save for a reunion picnic with her imprisoned son. Her branded A bleeds afresh every time a patient comes to see her.These are two mature, beautifully crafted, inventive and poetic plays by one of the most unique voices writing for the stage today.Suzan Lori-Parks is also the author of The America Play and Other Works and Venus, both published by TCG. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
previously published: The America Play and Other Works (TCG, 1995, 1-55936-092-5 sold 2000) • premiered at Yale Repertory and the Public Theatre in New York under the direction of Richard Foreman.
“Suzan-Lori Parks is one of the most important dramatists America has produced.”—Tony Kushner “The plan was that no matter what I did, how busy I was, what other commitments I had, I would write a play a day, every single day for a year. It would be about being present and being committed to the artistic process every single day, regardless of the ‘weather.’ It became a daily meditation, a daily prayer celebrating the rich and strange process of a writing life.”—Suzan-Lori Parks On November 13, 2002, the incomparable Suzan-Lori Parks got an idea to write a play every day for a year. She began that very day, finishing one year later. The result is an extraordinary testament to artistic commitment. This collection of 365 impeccably crafted pieces, each with its own distinctive characters and dramatic power, is a complete work by an artist responding to her world, each and every day. Parks is one of the American theater’s most wily and innovative writers, and her “stark but poetic language and fiercely idiosyncratic images transform her work into something haunting and marvelous” (TIME).
In reaction to the extraordinary events of the first hundred days of the presidency of Donald J. Trump, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks has created a unique and personal response to one of the most tumultuous times in our recent history—a play diary for each day of the presidency, to capture and explore the events as they unfolded. Known for her distinctive lyrical dialogue and powerful sociopolitical themes, Parks’s <em>100 Plays for the First Hundred Days</em> is the powerful and provocative everyman’s guide to the Trumpian universe of uncertainty, confusion, and chaos.
*Major New York production scheduled for the New York’s Public Theater Spring 2001. *Ms. Parks is currently the artist in residence at Cal School of the Arts in Irvine. *Cover story of the October issue of American Theatre magazine. *Her latest play In the Blood was runner up for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize.
"[Suzan-Lori Parks'] dislocating stage devices, stark but poetic language and fiercely idiosyncratic images transform her work into something haunting and marvelous."—Time «An original whose fierce intelligence and fearless approach to craft subvert theatrical convention and produce a mature and inimitable art that is as exciting as it is fresh.»—August Wilson Named one of the «100 Innovators for the Next New Wave» by Time magazine, Suzan-Lori Parks is a truly original voice of the American theater. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur «Genius» Award, Parks is renowned for her groundbreaking language, theatricality, and an aesthetic that continues to evolve in unexpected ways. Her first full-length play since her award-winning Topdog/Underdog, The Book of Grace is a scorching three-person drama in which a young man returns home to south Texas to confront his father, unearthing deep-seated passions and ambition. The play premiered in spring 2010 at the Public Theater, where Parks is in the midst of a three-year residency as the first recipient of the theater's master writer chair. Suzan-Lori Parks is a playwright, screenwriter, songwriter, and novelist. Her plays include Topdog/Underdog (winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize), In the Blood (a 2000 Pulitzer Prize finalist), Venus (OBIE Award winner) and Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (OBIE Award, Best New American Play).