Press - Topdog/Underdog

TOPDOG/UNDERDOG
by Suzan Lori-Parks
directed by Seret Scott
January 8-29, 2012
Julianne Argyros Stage

This electrifying drama about the gritty lives of two street savvy hustlers resonated through the theatre world.  The New York Times led the way, calling it “a thrilling comic drama….dazzlingly written!”  Lincoln and Booth bear the weight of black history—and the names of white men, given to them by their father as a joke before he (like their mother) walked away.  Left to their wiles and their bravado, the brothers never stop conning the suckers on the street and, ultimately, each other in this darkly funny hit about family grievances, wounds—and healing.

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Curtis McClarin and Larry Bates  in South Coast Repertory's 2012 production of Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Henry DiRocco.		Larry Bates and Curtis McClarin in South Coast Repertory's 2012 production of Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Henry DiRocco.

Larry Bates and Curtis McClarin in South Coast Repertory's 2012 production of Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Henry DiRocco.		Larry Bates and Curtis McClarin in South Coast Repertory's 2012 production of Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Henry DiRocco.

Larry Bates and Curtis McClarin in South Coast Repertory's 2012 production of Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Henry DiRocco.		Larry Bates and Curtis McClarin in South Coast Repertory's 2012 production of Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Henry DiRocco.

Larry Bates and Curtis McClarin in South Coast Repertory's 2012 production of Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Henry DiRocco.

Curtis McClarin in South Coast Repertory's 2012 production of Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Henry DiRocco.		Curtis McClarin in South Coast Repertory's 2012 production of Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Henry DiRocco.		Curtis McClarin in South Coast Repertory's 2012 production of Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Henry DiRocco.

Playwright Suzan Lori-Parks.		Topdog/Underdog logo courtesy of South Coast Repertory.		Topdog/Underdog logo courtesy of South Coast Repertory.

Playwright Bio

Suzan-Lori Parks is a playwright, screenwriter, novelist and songwriter.  Topdog/Underdog won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2001 she received a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, and she holds Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degrees from Mount Holyoke College and Spelman College. Her work is the subject of the PBS film The Topdog/Underdog Diaries, and Theatre Communications Group and Dramatists Play Service, Inc publish her plays. Her first feature-length screenplay was girl 6, for Spike Lee. She has also written screenplays for Jodie Foster, Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey. Other screenplays include adaptations of Toni Morrison’s novel Paradise, Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, and screenplays for Miramax and Brad Pitt. Her plays include In the Blood (2000 Pulitzer nominee), Venus (1996 OBIE Award), F***ing A, The America Play, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (1990 OBIE Award), The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World and 365 Days/365 Plays. Topdog/Underdog (2002 Tony nominee) has had successful runs on Broadway, in cities throughout the United States and in London at the Royal Court Theatre. Additional recognition includes two NEA playwriting fellowships, a W. Alton Jones Grant, a grant from The Kennedy Center Fund For New American Plays, the Whiting Writer’s Award, and grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the CalArts/Alpert Award, the PEW Charitable Trusts and The Guggenheim Foundation. Random House published her first novel, Getting Mother's Body.