Lynn Nottage Quotes
-
Once working people discover that, collectively, we have more power than we do as individual silos, then we become an incredibly powerful force. But I think that there are powers that be that are invested in us remaining divided along racial lines, along economic lines.
-
In listening to the narratives of the Congolese, I came to terms with the extent to which their bodies had become battlefields.
-
My hobby is raising my children.
-
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.
-
By the time I reached 50, I'd accumulated many unresolved fears and desires.
-
For me, the first thing is to tell a good story.
-
I always describe race as the final taboo in American theatre. There's a real reluctance to have that conversation in an open, honest way on the stage.
-
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.
-
I'm a schizophrenic writer.
-
Broadway's never my end goal because of the plays I write. These are tough plays. Of course there's a lot of humor, but my goal is just to reach as wide an audience as possible, however that happens.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I'm always hyperaware of the way in which working people are portrayed on the stage.
-
I think that human beings were incredibly resilient; otherwise, we wouldn't keep going.
-
I find my characters and stories in many varied places; sometimes they pop out of newspaper articles, obscure historical texts, lively dinner party conversations and some even crawl out of the dusty remote recesses of my imagination.
-
People probably have different philosophies about this, but I think that when you're first shaping the play and trying to find a character, the initial actors that develop it end up imprinting on it - you hear their voices; you hear their rhythms. You can't help but to begin to write toward them during the rehearsal process.
-
By the sheer act of writing, we are trying to place value on the stories that we're invested in.
-
Winning the second Pulitzer firmly places me in conversation with this culture.
-
Each play I write has its own unique origin story.
-
Broadway is a closed ecosystem.
-
I wouldn't say I see my work as having a political ideology. Lynn Nottage certainly has a political ideology. I think that the work is an extension of who I am, but I don't think that when I write the play I'm looking to push the audience one way or another.
-
We use metaphors to express our own truths.
-
In senior year at college, Paula Vogel was my playwriting teacher; she is the first person to introduce me to the notion that a woman could actually forge a career in the theatre. Up until then, the possibility seemed remote and inaccessible, as I had very few role models who directly touched my life.
-
When you're fighting for an increasingly smaller portion of the pie, you turn against each other; you create reasons to hate each other.