It has been ten years since playwright and screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks made her Broadway debut with Topdog/Uderdog, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Parks also received a Tony Award nomination for her play about two African American brothers, starring Jeffrey Wright and Mos Def. Now Parks is back on Broadway this season with her reinterpretation of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, a new musical starring four-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald as Bess. A McArthur Foundation “Genius†Grant recipient, Parks’ other works include the plays Venus, 365 Days/365 Plays, and The Book of Grace, as well as the screenplays Their Eyes Were Watching God and Girl 6. Her Ray Charles musical, Unchain My Heart, is scheduled to premiere on Broadway next year.
BlackEnterprise.com talked to Parks about her return to the Great White Way and her adaptation of George and Ira Gershwin’s classic folk opera Porgy and Bess into a Broadway musical.
Blackenterprise.com: What does it feel like coming to Broadway now compared to your debut with Topdog/Underdog nearly a decade ago?
Parks: It’s definitely not a ‘been there done that’ feeling. There is something about being on Broadway that feels new. It is only my second time. It’s a different show. It’s a musical. I wrote Topdog/Underdog
. I am the book adapter on Porgy and Bess. It didn’t spring fully formed out of my own head. Topdog was a two-person show. But this musical is an enormous enterprise. Topdog was groundbreaking in a lot of ways. And I have to say so is this show. So, I feel that I am breaking ground again. I’m blazing another trail.How did you get involved with this production, what drew you to the project?
The producers sought me out. Diane Paulus (the show’s director) called me up and said I am doing a revival of Porgy and Bess. Would you like to work on the adaptation of the book? I said how many writers are you thinking of. She said just you. And I said okay; I’ll do it. There’s the novel Porgy, there’s the play called Porgy, and of course, there’s the brilliant opera Porgy and Bess. Diane sent me the libretto and the score, and I fell in love with it. With the musical I get to go back and pull something that’s a classic from 75 years ago and bring it to audiences of today. It wasn’t daunting for me. As the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, after you do that you can take on anything. I had James Baldwin as my creative writing teacher back in the day (at Mount Holyoke College). I’ve had the best training.
How does The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess speak to a new contemporary audience?
A lot of people have heard of Porgy and Bess but they haven’t had any firsthand experience with it. Maybe they’ve seen a bit of the movie or they’ve heard of it. And even when people say they know Porgy and Bess they really mean they know the music. So many people know “It Ain’t Necessarily So.†They know “Bess You Is My Women.†They know “I Loves Your Porgy.† They know “Summertime.†I can’t remember how many times I have traveled around the world and heard a version of “Summertime†performed. Most people know the music but they don’t know the story behind it. Even some people who have seen the opera or the movie aren’t really clear on the story. Porgy and Bess is a great love story. I wanted to flesh out some of the characters.  I have added some words; I have added some scenes (some of the original opera’s scenes were too stereotypical). Every word that you hear has been checked by me.
How do you respond to the criticisms about making revisions to this musical?
People are always going to say something. You know a lot of people who have critiqued it haven’t seen it yet. I respect Stephen Sondheim. He is one of my favorite composers in the entire universe. But I wish he had seen the show before he said anything negative about it. Some people want to see the show in its purest state. But the opera is based on the book Porgy written by DuBose Heyward (in 1925). Â He and his wife adapted the novel into a play (in 1927). Then they adapted the play with the Gershwins into an opera (in 1935). All three works deal with black life in the (fabled) Catfish Row in Charleston, South Carolina in the 1920s. So, now we are taking the version of the opera and adapting it into a Broadway musical for today’s audience.
Who should come see The Gerswhins’ Porgy and Bess?
Everybody should see this musical, especially black people. There are so many reasons. It’s smart. It’s real. It makes you cry and laugh at the same time. Like I said it’s a great love story.               Â
Historical notes: Originally conceived by George and Ira Gershwin as an “American folk opera”, Porgy and Bess opened on Broadway in 1935, featuring an entire cast of classically trained African-American singers. The 1942 revival of Porgy and Bess was refashioned into a musical. A film version of the musical starring Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge and Sammy Davis, Jr. was adapted in 1959.
Parks, along with other black female playwrights, will be profiled on BlackEnterprise.com throughout this month in conjunction with Black Enterprise magazine’s December 2012 “The New Look of Broadway†issue.
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