Suzan-Lori Parks

Design Matters with Debbie Millman

Design Matters Media

Arts, Design

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2024

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Named one of TIME magazine’s “100 Innovators for the Next New Wave,” Suzan-Lori Parks is the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Topdog/Underdog. She joins to discuss her long and illustrious career as a playwright, musician, and novelist.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective.
0:02.0	Audio Collective.
0:04.0	I felt like Thomas Jefferson had invited me into his house and I listened to him and I listened to Sally and then you realize but it's not just history it's us.
0:29.0	From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Milman.
0:36.0	For 19 years, Debbie Milman has been talking with designers and other creative people about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're
0:39.3	thinking about and working on. On this episode, Susan Lori Parks talks about her life and her art.
0:46.0	Writing is my love language. When you find yourself in one of my plays, that's me saying
0:52.2	I love you. I love you. I don't even know you.
0:56.3	It's likely we all know something about the foundational American story of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson.
1:06.8	She was his property and she bore six of his children.
1:11.2	When Jefferson died after a 30-year relationship, he didn't free her in his will, as was often common at the time.
1:19.0	Susan Lorry Parks has staged some of the most important works of contemporary American
1:24.4	theater and as a result she has won nearly every artistic accolade including
1:30.4	a Pulitzer Prize several several Tony Awards,
1:33.2	and a MacArthur Genius Grant.
1:35.5	Her latest play is a play within a play
1:37.9	titled Sally and Tom.
1:40.5	In it, she presents the story of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson and explores the complications
1:46.2	and contradictions of their relationship with candor, Patos, and a group of phenomenal actors.
1:54.0	Sally and Tom is currently on stage at the public theater in New York City.
1:58.4	Susan Lori is also a novelist and a member of the band, Sula, and the Joyful Noise.
2:05.2	Susan Lori Parks, welcome to Design Matters.
	...

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