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Voices, a new program developed by the Department of Theater to
spotlight issues of particular relevance to Dartmouth’s minority communities,
will debut this month with a series of events based around the work of
acclaimed playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. The series will include performances of
seven plays from Parks’ 365 Days/365 Plays cycle, a production of Parks’ play
Topdog/Underdog, and a lecture by Parks.
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks will speak at Dartmouth Oct.
4.
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Parks is a playwright, screenwriter, and novelist whose plays include
Topdog/Underdog, for which she was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for
Drama, Fucking A, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third
Kingdom, Venus, The Death Of The Last Black Man in the Whole
Entire World, and In The Blood. Her work was the subject of the
PBS Film The Topdog/Underdog Diaries. An alumna of New Dramatists,
Parks is the recipient of a Leila-Wallace Reader’s Digest Award, a
CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts, a Guggenheim Foundation Grant, and a
MacArthur Foundation Award. Her work for film and television includes Girl
6 (directed by Spike Lee) and the adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their
Eyes Were Watching God, for Oprah Winfrey Presents. She is also the author
of the novel, Getting Mother’s Body.
Parks’ project, 365 Days/365 Plays, is the culmination of her idea to write
a play each day for a year. The resulting cycle serves as a daily meditation on
an artistic life. The works from the cycle are being produced by a variety of
colleges and universities. Dartmouth’s theater department was invited to
produce seven of the plays.
Parks was a good fit for the Voices program, says Peter Hackett ’75, chair
and professor of theater. “Among her many accomplishments, Suzan-Lori Parks is
the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for drama. She
is a major force in American theater and we are delighted that she will be the
first guest artist in the Voices program.”
Topdog/Underdog is about the relationship between two
African-American brothers. It has had successful runs both on- and
off-Broadway. Both Topdog/Underdog and the selections from 365
Days/365 Plays will be directed by Niegel Smith ’02, a rising star in New York
theater. Smith, a freelance director and the artistic leadership associate at
The Public Theater in New York City, was chosen to direct
Topdog/Underdog because “he was an award-winning theater major at
Dartmouth,” says Hackett, “and he brings his talents as a director and his keen
interest in new and contemporary theater to the Voices program.”
Smith says he was pleased to be asked to return to Dartmouth “for such an
exciting and challenging project. Suzan-Lori Parks is one of our nation’s
greatest playwrights. Her theatrical imagination and stunning rethinking of
form, particularly language, has resulted in plays which tightly weave the past
around characters who struggle to define and understand their contemporary
identity.”
Parks’ lecture will be held on Thursday, Oct. 4, in the Hopkins Center’s
Bentley Theater. The selections from 365 Days/365 Plays will be held Thursday,
Oct. 25, through Saturday, Oct. 27, in the Hopkins Center, at times to be
determined. The production of Topdog/Underdog is scheduled for 8 p.m. on Oct.
25 and 26 and at 5 p.m. on Oct. 27 in the Hopkins Center’s Bentley Theater. All
events are free and open to the public, but space is limited and tickets are
required. For ticketing information, visit Voices: The Dartmouth
Theater Visiting Artist Program or call 646-3104.
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