SLP & The Joyful Noise

Suzan-Lori Parks is a multi-award-winning writer and musician. She is the first African-American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Topdog/Underdog which recently won the 2023 Tony Award, for best revival. Her other plays include Sally & Tom (2024) Plays for the Plague Year (Drama Desk Award, Best Music, 2023) and Father Comes Home From The Wars (2014). Parks’ first marathon-writing “micro diary plays” 365 Days/365 Plays were produced worldwide in what was the largest grassroots collaborative theatre project to date. She is a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, a novelist: Getting Mother’s Body (Random House), and a screenwriter: Girl 6, Genius: Aretha, and The United States vs Billie Holiday. Parks also writes songs and fronts her band “SLP & The Joyful Noise” with her punk-couture medicine show, The Tune Up world-premiering this summer. As a college student Parks is grateful to have studied creative writing with James Baldwin, who encouraged her to write for the theatre.