In 2002, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks began writing one play each day for an entire year.
The resulting cycle, called “365 Plays/365 Days,” is now receiving its premiere as part of a yearlong grassroots festival that has enlisted more than 600 theater companies, arts organizations and universities from across the nation. In St. Louis, 15 students from the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present a week’s worth of the cycle at various locations on campus April 2-8.
Performances include “Greek Tragedy & Jerry Springer” (April 2), “First Beginning” (April 3), “Look” (April 4), “Stitches” (April 5), “6’4″” (April 6), “Father Comes Home From the Wars (Part 4)” (April 7) and “Father Comes Home From The Wars (Part 5)” (April 8).
In addition, students will present daily showings of three works: “The 1st Constant (Remember Who You Are),” “The 2nd Constant (Action in Inaction)” and “The 3rd Constant (Inaction in Action).”
All 10 plays will be presented together in two formal showings April 5 at 4:20 p.m. in the Ann W. Olin Women’s Building and 8 p.m. in the Village House Theatre within The Village dormitory complex.
Parks — a playwright, screenwriter and novelist — is author of “Topdog/Underdog,” which won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Her work for film and television includes “Girl 6,” directed by Spike Lee, and an adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” for Oprah Winfrey Presents on ABC.
Parks began writing the “365 Plays/365 Days” cycle Nov. 13, 2002. The 365 National Festival was launched exactly four years later and continues through Nov. 12. Participants are divided into local networks, each built around a coordinating theater that serves as a hub. Each hub presents one week’s worth of plays before passing the cycle on to another venue in the network, creating a kind of cultural relay race across the country.
Åll performances are free and open to the public. For a complete list of times and locations, visit padarts.wustl.edu. For more information, call (502) 548-2430.