degrees, the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE AD-
VANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE’s Spingarn Medal
in 1972, and the national Medal of Arts at the
White House in 1988. In Voices in the Mirror, he
evaluates his purpose as a photographer: “I have,
for a long time, worked under the premise that
everyone is worth something; that every life is
valuable to our own existence. Consequently, I’ve
felt it was my camera’s responsibility to shed light
on any condition that hinders human growth or
warps the spirit... whether its victims are black
or white” (179–180).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Donalson, Mel. Above the Line: Black Directors in Hol-
lywood. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.
Parks, Gordon. Voices in the Mirror: An Autobiogra-
ph y. New York: Anchor Books, 1990.
Melvin Donalson
Parks, Suzan-Lori (1964– )
Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright, screenwriter,
songwriter, novelist, essayist, lecturer, and educa-
tor Suzan-Lori Parks was born in Fort Knox, Ken-
tucky, on May 10, 1964. The daughter of an army
colonel and educator, Parks lived in several states
before her family was transferred to Germany,
where she attended high school and learned to
speak German. In 1985 she graduated Phi Beta
Kappa and cum laude from Mount Holyoke Col-
lege with a B.A. in English and German literature
before pursuing an acting career at the Drama
Studio in London for a year. Parks has taught cre-
ative writing at a number of institutions, includ-
ing the Yale School of Drama, the Pratt Institute
for the Arts, the New School for Social Research,
and the Dramatic Writing Program at California
Institute for the Arts (CalArts), where she was the
director of the new A.S.K. Theater Projects Writ-
ing for Performance program (2000–2004). She is
currently a distinguished writing fellow at CalArts
and lives in California with her husband, blues
musician Paul Oscher.
Parks began her writing career during her
sophomore year at Mount Holyoke College, where
she studied creative writing with her mentor JAMES
BALDWIN, who encouraged her to write plays after
hearing her read her works aloud. There is a strong
emphasis on historical events, characters, and lan-
guage throughout her works. Parks’s early short
plays include The Sinners’ Place (1984), produced
while she was in college, Betting on the Dust Com-
mander (1987), Pickling (1989), and Fishes (1989).
Parks’s full-length plays include the Obie
Award–winning Imperceptible Mutabilities in the
Third Kingdom (1989), which is set on the day in
1865 that slaves in America were freed; The Death
of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World
(1990), a historical dreamscape of death and non-
religious resurrection; Devotees in the Garden of
Love (1992), a tragicomedy of courtly ritual; and
The America Play (1993), which features the pro-
tagonist the “Foundling Father,” who is obsessed
with Abraham Lincoln.
Parks’s other full-length plays include Obie
Award–winner Ve n u s (1996), which traces the life
of a young woman who travels from South Africa
to Europe with high hopes of becoming successful;
a 2000 Pulitzer nominee, In the Blood (1999), about
the tough life of an inner-city homeless single
mother who has given birth to five children by five
fathers; and Fucking A (2000), based on Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. In Fucking A, set
in an indeterminate future where people speak
different languages, it is a crime to procreate out
of wedlock. Her play 365 Days/365 Plays (2003) is
a 30-hour play with varying lengths. Written for
each day over a year, 365 Days takes note of actual
historical events and the passing of celebrities such
as Johnny Cash and George Plimpton.
Parks wrote her Pulitzer Prize–winning play,
Topdog/Underdog (2001), the idea for which came
from The America Play (1993), in three days.
In 2002 it became the first play by an African-
American woman to win the Pulitzer. Premiering
on Broadway at the Ambassador Theatre in New
York, starring Jeffrey Wright as Lincoln and Don
Cheadle as Booth and featuring as well hip-hop
artist MOS DEF, who later filled the role of Booth,
Topdog/Underdog depicts the plight of two broth-
ers—Lincoln, a card shark and Abraham Lincoln
impersonator, and Booth, a master shoplifterParks, Suzan-Lori 407