Suzan-Lori Parks (Michigan Modern Dramatists)

Suzan Lori-Parks is one of America's most distinctive playwrights. In 2007 her creation "365 Plays/365 Days" was produced in more than 700 theaters around the world. She has been named one of "Time" magazine's "100 Innovators for the Next New Wave" and is a recipient of the MacArthur Award. A former student of James Baldwin's, she is a prolific author with novels, screenplays, and even a musical to her credit, but is best known for her plays. Works such as "Topdog/Underdog", "In the Blood", "Venus", "The Death of the Last Black Man in the Entire World", "Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom", and "The America Play" have been widely produced and have won the highest honors (including the Pulitzer Prize and two Obies), but to date, books on her work have been scarce.The latest addition to the "Michigan Major Dramatists" series offers an indispensable guide to Parks's dramatic works, taking a close look at her major plays and placing them in context. Deborah R. Geis traces the evolution of Parks' art from her earliest experimental pieces to the hugely popular "Topdog/Underdog" to her wide-ranging forays into fiction, music, and film.