Lynn Nottage Quotes
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I know what I'm trying to say, so I'm always open to learning how to say it.
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The act of saying what you do helps shape you as an artist.
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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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I need a release from whatever I'm writing.
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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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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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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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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 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.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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I'm a contemporary playwright in a postmodern world.
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I'm interested in people who are dwelling outside the mainstream. And very often, those people happen to be woman of color.
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Women are standing up and leaning forward and asserting their power.
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For me, the first thing is to tell a good story.
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My parents are avid consumers of art, collectors of African American paintings, and have always gone to the theater. My mother has always been an activist, too. As long as I can remember, we were marching in lines.
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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 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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We live in a global society, and I don't think we can talk about, quote unquote, 'American themes' anymore.
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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.