A play a day keeps the creativity at play. And with no pun intended, Code Z rarely doubles back, but we were forced to return to 2002 and Suzan Lori-Parks’s 365 Days/365 Plays, after peeping her works at The Warehouse in Washington, DC. Three hundred sixty-five days later it's 2003 and Pulitzer prize-winning novelist, playwright and screenwriter, Suzan-Lori Parks manages to document her daily aspirations, observations, and interactions birthing 365 Days/365 Plays. Her collection--pregnant with humor, disturbing, thought provoking, and courageous--is the result of Parks spending 2002 writing a play a day. Local DC performance artists from Sol & Soul, The Black Women Playwrights’ Group, and writer and performer, Holly Bass presented 14 of Parks’s January pieces. Although each play is unique to its day and circumstance, with varying lengths and themes, each carried a sense of singularity and continuity reflected in the stream of consciousness of everyday people. The two weeks of plays tackled the race issue, war in Afghanistan and Iraq, womanhood, incest, and a host of other themes, but as each actor exhaled and exited stage right, the audience was tasked with inhaling the last breath to continue the conversation that Parks initiated. The DC troupe translated Parks's open works, invoking a unique remix to her nth day.

In that same spirit of community continuity, Parks's works will meet the public in over 600 theaters nationwide until November 17, making it the largest theater collaboration in U.S. history-free of charge. At the hands of the public, Parks takes a risk, presenting her humanity to the public and ultimately leaving the curtains up and stage lights on so the people can live their own endings.

Although the performance spent only one night in DC, the plays are taking place across the nation, so be sure to check for your zip code, if it is not there, maybe you can do something to bring it there.

In the between, we will check where Topdog/Underdog took Mos Def, but Code Z always maintains bit of anonymity, so look for more in February's music issue.

Above: Suzan-Lori Parks

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