For Parks, one curtain falls as another curtain rises

By Lea Lion

Nov. 1, 2007 12 AM PT

The last time I saw Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, a security guard was hassling her for climbing up on a concrete planter at the Music Center Plaza. We were at the Los Angeles premiere of her yearlong national theater festival “365 Days/365 Plays” and Parks was trying to get a better view of the action. Unfazed by the warning, the dreadlocked playwright flashed the guard a wide smile and jumped down into the crowd.

Life is no less exciting for Parks this year. On Tuesday, the “365 National Festival” wraps with a seven-play grand finale at California Plaza and on Nov. 9, the world premiere of her new work “Ray Charles Live!” opens at the Pasadena Playhouse. Recently, I caught up with the industrious playwright for a quick conversation about Broadway musicals, grass-roots theater and how to reach “the people.”

It seems like November is a busy time for you.

It’s funny how “365” is winding down the same week that we are opening “Ray Charles Live!” . . . Next year it will probably be so laid-back and chill that I’ll be like, “Dang! What’s going on?”

Did “365” live up to your expectations?

It was more. It was better. It was more-better. [Laughs] I expected theater folks to show up and do something -- that was all I wanted -- I didn’t expect it to be so gorgeous . . . and so freaky like [Highways Performance Space]. Whew!

What have you been working on this year?

I’ve been crafting the book to “Ray Charles Live” . . . and then in the last month or so, attending rehearsals. . . . I’m working with [director] Sheldon Epps . . . . The music, of course, is all Ray Charles. The concept is that Ray is dead and he comes back because he wants to make one more live album and he invites all of the people from his life to sing on the record.

Sounds like a 180-degree turn from “365.”

We’re opening this huge, Broadway-bound -- hopefully -- musical at the same time that we’re closing this enormous grass-roots theater festival. A lot of people would say, “Oh, that commercial Broadway-bound thing is for the birds; just concentrate on the people,” but the people are everywhere. . . . We talked for the whole year about radical inclusion.

What is radical inclusion?

When you are including people that don’t look like you, don’t believe in what you believe in and don’t think like you -- that’s radical inclusion and that’s when it gets interesting.

--lea.lion@latimes.com

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

365 DAYS/365 PLAYS FINALE

WHERE: California Plaza, 300-350 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.

WHEN: 8 p.m. Tues.

PRICE: Free.

INFO: (213) 972-7599; centertheatregroup.org

ALSO:

RAY CHARLES LIVE!

WHERE: Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena

WHEN: Opens 8 p.m. Nov. 9.

PRICE: $75-$100.