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I wonder: Would there be a black president if people hadn't already begun imagining, through film and television, that a black man is president? It's self-actualization.
Lynn Nottage -
My grandfather was a Pullman porter, and my father put his way through college by cleaning floors at night in the libraries. I understand that working people are in some way the bedrock of my existence and the existence of many people here.
Lynn Nottage
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In my family history, there are generations of women who were abandoned by men. It's one of the themes of my family.
Lynn Nottage -
What I often do when I'm writing, if I can't find that story, I go out and I hunt for it.
Lynn Nottage -
I can't quite remember the exact moment when I became obsessed with writing a play about the seemingly endless war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but I knew that I wanted to somehow tell the stories of the Congolese women caught in the cross-fire.
Lynn Nottage -
We live in a global society, and I don't think we can talk about, quote unquote, 'American themes' anymore.
Lynn Nottage -
For me, the first thing is to tell a good story.
Lynn Nottage -
A lot of the factories that had been the bedrock of many small cities were being shut down, which led me to investigate what I'm calling the 'de-industrial revolution.'
Lynn Nottage
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I love my people's history. I feel a huge responsibility to tell the stories of my past and my ancestors' past.
Lynn Nottage -
I need a release from whatever I'm writing.
Lynn Nottage -
I'm interested in people who are dwelling outside the mainstream. And very often, those people happen to be woman of color.
Lynn Nottage -
It is such a joy to join a legacy of amazing female playwrights who have managed to break through the glass ceiling and reinvigorate the Broadway stage by bringing a fresh and necessary perspective.
Lynn Nottage -
I was really interested in the way in which poverty and economic stagnation were transforming and corrupting the American narrative.
Lynn Nottage -
The people sometimes who are closest to us are the ones who bear the brunt of our frustration.
Lynn Nottage
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In many ways, I consider those to be my formative years, because when you're in school, you have a distant relationship to the world in that most of what you're learning is from books and lectures. But at Amnesty, I came face to face with realities in a very direct and harsh way.
Lynn Nottage -
There was no way I was going to write about Africa and not include the triumphant continuity of life that had also been part of my experience there. It's not just war and famine all the time.
Lynn Nottage -
I'm a contemporary playwright in a postmodern world.
Lynn Nottage -
In listening to the narratives of the Congolese, I came to terms with the extent to which their bodies had become battlefields.
Lynn Nottage -
It's very easy, when we're reading those articles on the 20th page of 'The New York Times,' to distance ourselves and say, 'It's someone else.'
Lynn Nottage -
When I sat in rooms with middle-aged white men, I heard them speaking like young black men in America. They had been solidly middle class for the majority of their working careers, but now they were feeling angry, disaffected, and in some cases, they actually had tears in their eyes.
Lynn Nottage
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By the time I reached 50, I'd accumulated many unresolved fears and desires.
Lynn Nottage -
Plays are getting smaller and smaller, not because playwrights minds are shrinking but because of the economics.
Lynn Nottage -
I wrote 'Ruined' and 'Vera Stark' at the same time. That's just how my brain functions - when I'm dwelling someplace very heavy, I need a release.
Lynn Nottage -
I'm always hyperaware of the way in which working people are portrayed on the stage.
Lynn Nottage