Marsha Norman
Marsha Norman
Marsha Normanis an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. She received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play 'night, Mother. She wrote the book and lyrics for such Broadway musicals as The Secret Garden, for which she won a Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical, and The Red Shoes, as well as the libretto for the musical The Color Purple and the book for the musical The Bridges of Madison County...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth21 September 1947
CountryUnited States of America
People listen to music with cavemen ears: Is it a bird song or the call of a lion? The audience at a musical is dancing in their hearts.
Think of a musical as a string of pearls. If you don't have a string, you can't put the pearls around your neck.
What I hope to do is create a play that investigates the ongoing violence toward women and children in the world, and searches for some kind of answer to the question, 'What Can We Do?'
When she called me and I heard her voice, I just went to pieces. The rest of the day, I lost all my strength.
I tried and tried and tried to call her. It was very emotional for me.
This story begins where all great stories start, with loss. 'Hansel and Gretel' begins with the parents are gone, 'Cinderella' and 'Sleeping Beauty,' the mom is dead.
Knowing is the most profound kind of love, giving someone the gift of knowledge about yourself.
I have had an inordinate and painful concern for the audience in my writing career.
The theater is a communal event, like church. The playwright constructs a mass to be performed for a lot of people. She writes a prayer, which is really just the longings of one heart.
I'm who I was waiting for. I didn't make it.
Music expresses longing and love and joy better than any piece of dialogue you can ever write.
There are days when I think the National Endowment for the Arts should issue a quota system for the production of plays by women - especially when you realize women buy 70 percent of all theater tickets.
If someone wants to say 'I love you' in a straight play, they say it, and then it's the other person's turn to talk. But in a song, you can sing about it for another three minutes. The musical form has that unique opportunity to express at length what joy really feels like.
At the heart of the failure of most plays is the inability to carry on a thoughtful conversation about your work with yourself.