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" When you begin a play, you're going to have to spend a lot of time with those characters, so those characters are going to have to be rich enough that you want to take a very long journey with them. That's how I begin thinking about what I want to write about and who I want to write about. "

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" The great thing about 'Vera Stark' is that my research was watching movies, screwball comedies, so I could literally sit back and relax. "

Lynn Nottage

Relax

Movies

Great

" I need a release from whatever I'm writing. "

" I love my people's history. I feel a huge responsibility to tell the stories of my past and my ancestors' past. "

" The presence of a bed changes the way people interact. "

" The people sometimes who are closest to us are the ones who bear the brunt of our frustration. "

Lynn Nottage

Bear

Sometimes

" 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. "

" 'Ruined' was a play which was somewhat of an anomaly in that I did not take a commission until it was finished because I really wanted to explore the subject matter unencumbered. Otherwise, I felt as though I'd have the voice of dramaturges and literary managers saying, 'This is great, but we'll never be able to produce it.' "

" I'm a schizophrenic writer. "

Lynn Nottage

Writer

Schizophrenic

" If you're looking at the people who head the institutions, there are very few African Americans or people of colour. I'm talking about the major theatres that position themselves as serving all audiences. What you find is, by and large, people who are shaping what we see, and the people who are the tastemakers are white. "

" For me, playwriting is sharing my experiences, telling my stories. "

Lynn Nottage

Experiences

Sharing

" My hobby is raising my children. "

" American audiences very rarely deal with material outside their borders. "

" 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. "

" The more you go to a theatre and the more you hear stories you aren't necessarily familiar with, the more open you become. "

Lynn Nottage

You

Become

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I teach at Columbia, and I'm always looking for books I can lose myself in during the 45 minutes I'm on the train. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" We live in a global society, and I don't think we can talk about, quote unquote, 'American themes' anymore. "

" 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. "

" African American women in particular have incredible buying power. Statistically, we go to the movies more than anyone. We have made Tyler Perry's career. His films open with $25 million almost consistently. "

" 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. "

" Each play I write has its own unique origin story. "

" The person whose work introduced me to the craft was Lorraine Hansberry. The person who taught me to love the craft was Tennessee Williams. The person who really taught me the power of the craft was August Wilson, and the person who taught me the political heft of the craft was Arthur Miller. "

" 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 see procrastination and research as part of my artistic process. "

" By the time I reached 50, I'd accumulated many unresolved fears and desires. "

" I'm interested in people who are dwelling outside the mainstream. And very often, those people happen to be woman of color. "

" I know what I'm trying to say, so I'm always open to learning how to say it. "