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" There were not a lot of women in the theater department - it was really run by men, and so the message was that women can be onstage, but women can't really be backstage. "

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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. "

Lynn Nottage

You

Thinking

Rich

" What I often do when I'm writing, if I can't find that story, I go out and I hunt for it. "

Lynn Nottage

Find

Hunt

" I am a storyteller by trade. "

Lynn Nottage

Storyteller

Trade

" By the sheer act of writing, we are trying to place value on the stories that we're invested in. "

" Before I start, I create a set list that I listen to while I'm writing. For 'Intimate Apparel,' I loaded Erik Satie, Scott Joplin, klezmer music, and the American jazz performer and composer Reginald Robinson. "

" I am interested in people living in the margins of society, and I do have a mission to tell the stories of women of colour in particular. I feel we've been present throughout history, but our voices have been neglected. "

" I was repeatedly told that there isn't an African American woman who can open a show on Broadway. I said, 'Well, how do we know? How do we know if we don't do it?' I said, 'I think you're wrong.' "

" 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. "

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

" Replace judgment with curiosity. "

" My interest in theatre and storytelling began in my mother's kitchen. It was a meeting place for my mother's large circle of friends. "

" I think folks who are resistant to engaging in art become less so once they encounter art that really reflects them. "

" There is an enduring feeling that women can write domestic dramas but don't have the muscularity or the vision to write state-of-the-nation narratives. "

" People probably have different philosophies about this, but I think that when you're first shaping the play and trying to find a character, the initial actors that develop it end up imprinting on it - you hear their voices; you hear their rhythms. You can't help but to begin to write toward them during the rehearsal process. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The stage is the last bastion of segregation. "

" I like to go into a space, listen, absorb, and then interpret. "

Lynn Nottage

Then

Listen

" It remains an incredible struggle for women in theater, and, in particular, playwrights and directors, to get their work seen and to not only get seen, but to get it to Broadway. "

" I think of myself as a healing artist. "

" The act of saying what you do helps shape you as an artist. "

" I wonder: Would there be a black president if people hadn't already begun imagining, through film and television, that a black man is president? It's self-actualization. "

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

" I'm a schizophrenic writer. "

Lynn Nottage

Writer

Schizophrenic

" I'm always hyperaware of the way in which working people are portrayed on the stage. "

" My hobby is raising my children. "

" The theatre should reflect America as it's lived in today. And that is a multicultural America. "

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