Lynn Nottage Quotes
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I need a release from whatever I'm writing.
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Ultimately, we're incredibly resilient creatures. People really do get on with the business of living.
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Saying, 'I'm going to create jobs' is great, but before you create jobs, something has to be offered to alleviate some of the suffering now.
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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.'
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What I often do when I'm writing, if I can't find that story, I go out and I hunt for it.
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The people sometimes who are closest to us are the ones who bear the brunt of our frustration.
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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.
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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.
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If you lead with the anger, it will turn off the audience. And what I want is the audience to engage with the material and to listen and then to ask questions. I think that 'Ruined' was very successful at doing that.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I'm a contemporary playwright in a postmodern world.
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In listening to the narratives of the Congolese, I came to terms with the extent to which their bodies had become battlefields.
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We live in a global society, and I don't think we can talk about, quote unquote, 'American themes' anymore.
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For me, the first thing is to tell a good story.
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I do see myself as an old-fashioned storyteller. But there's always a touch of the political in my plays.
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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.
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I was really interested in the way in which poverty and economic stagnation were transforming and corrupting the American narrative.
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The essence of creativity is to look beyond where you can actually see. I don't want to dwell in same place too long.
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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.
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I always thought of my mother as a warrior woman, and I became interested in pursuing stories of women who invent lives in order to survive.
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I don't think any of us could predict Trump. Trump is the stuff of nightmares. But in talking to people, I knew there was a tremendous level of disaffection and anger and sorrow. I know people felt misrepresented and voiceless.
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Women are standing up and leaning forward and asserting their power.