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
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.
Music expresses longing and love and joy better than any piece of dialogue you can ever write.
I grew up at the piano, and I longed to write musicals.
After I won the Pulitzer, there was this sense of, 'OK, that's enough for you. Now go away.' What I wanted was to keep writing, keep working. But no one would produce anything of mine they didn't think would be as big as ''night, Mother.'
In the theater, when people hear that you're writing a play, they want to know what it's all about, whether there's a role for them. You write it fairly quickly, and it becomes a group activity before you're really ready to have company.
Write about the thing that frightens you most.
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'm who I was waiting for. I didn't make it.