Synopsis: Offered his freedom if he joins his master in the ranks of the Confederacy, Hero, a slave, must choose whether to leave the woman and people he loves for what may be another empty promise. As his decision brings him face to face with a nation at war with itself, the ones Hero left behind debate whether to escape or wait for his return, only to discover that for Hero, freedom may have come at a great spiritual cost.

Cast Breakdown:
The Musician
The Chorus of Less Than Desirable Slaves: Leader, Second, Third, Fourth
The Oldest Old Man
Hero
Penny
Homer
A Colonel, in the Rebel Army
Smith, a captive Union Soldier
The Runaway Slaves
Odyssey Dog
Ulysses

Set/Costume Requirements:
Part 1: Early Spring, 1862. A slave cabin in the middle of nowhere. Far West Texas.
Part 2: Late Summer, 1862. A wooded area in the South. Pretty much in the middle of nowhere.
Part 3: Fall, 1863. Far West Texas. A slave cabin in the middle of nowhere.

Website: http://www.suzanloriparks.com

Agent: Mark Subias subiasm@unitedtalent.com

Play Service: Published by TCG; available on amazon.com

Bio: Named one of TIME magazine’s “100 Innovators for the Next New Wave,” in 2002 Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her Broadway hit Topdog/Underdog. A MacArthur “Genius” Award and Gish Prize recipient, she has also been awarded grants by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her new play Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2, & 3) made its world premiere at the Public Theater in New York, followed by a celebrated run at the A.R.T in Cambridge, MA. The play was named a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was awarded the 2015 Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History as well as the 2014 Horton Foote Prize. Parks’s work on The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess was honored with the 2012 Tony Award. Her numerous plays include The Book of Grace, In the Blood (2000 Pulitzer Prize finalist), Venus (1996 OBIE Award), 365 Days/365 Plays, and The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, among others. She’s written a novel, Getting Mother’s Body, published by Random House. Her first feature-length screenplay was Girl 6, written for Spike Lee. She’s also written screenplays for Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster and Oprah Winfrey, adapting Zora Neale Hurston’s classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God which premiered on ABC’s Oprah Winfrey Presents. Parks is currently writing an adaptation of the film The Harder They Come for a live stage musical. Suzan-Lori is the Master Writer Chair at the Public Theater, and she also serves as a professor in dramatic writing at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.