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Working: A ‘70s Crime Classic Gets a Musical Redux

Slate Culture Feed

Slate Podcasts

Arts, Music, Tv & Film

4.22K Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, host Isaac Butler talks to Suzan-Lori Parks, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright whose most recent project is a musical theater adaptation of the 1972 Jamaican crime film The Harder They Come. In the interview, Suzan-Lori shares her flexible approach to adaptation and, more specifically, how she was able to deepen the original story of The Harder They Come while honoring the original. She also talks about the unique challenges of adapting a movie into a stage musical.  After the interview, Isaac and co-host Karen Han talk about the ubiquity of adaptations and reboots and what it means to make a whole new piece of work out of old material.  In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Isaac asks Suzan-Lori about her project 365 Days/365 Plays in which she wrote a play a day for an entire year. Isaac also asks about a unique playwriting convention that Suzan-Lori pioneered.  Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675.   Podcast production by Cameron Drews. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you’ll also be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

My guy, I use the point with Ms. Football.

0:03.2

This summer it's time to get to know the players and your taste buds.

0:07.1

That's the line.

0:08.1

If 70% of the UK prefers the taste of Pepsi Max, you prefer Pepsi Max.

0:13.5

Firstly, for more, visit PepsiMax.withsportfryer.com to enter our quiz to win gig tickets and find your perfect playlist.

0:21.1

UK blind taste test with over 34,000 people versus UK's biggest selling food sugar coder.

0:26.0

For verification, go to Pepsi.co.uk forward slash FAQ.

0:40.3

I think everyone in our musical is a human being, which means that everyone has stakes.

0:47.3

Everyone is considered.

0:49.8

That's because when you elevate one character, everybody is elevated.

0:54.5

And it makes for a better story.

1:00.0

Welcome back to Working. I'm your host, Karen Han.

1:03.0

And I'm your other host, Isaac Butler.

1:05.2

Hello, Isaac. So...

1:06.9

Hello, Karen.

1:09.7

So who did you talk to for this week's episode?

1:12.2

Well, Karen, I talk to the great Susan Laurie Parks.

1:15.5

She is a writer. She's won the Pulitzer Prize.

1:18.0

She's a playwright. She's a screenwriter.

1:19.3

She's all sorts of things.

1:20.2

And she is having quite the year, a critically acclaimed revival of her masterpiece,

1:25.2

Top Dog Underdog, just finished its run on Broadway recently.

...

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