I write for myself and my goal is bringing that world and that experience of black Americans to life on the stage and giving it a space there.

All you need is the blues. To me, the blues is the book, it's the bible, it's everything.

I'm trying to take culture and put it onstage, demonstrate it is capable of sustaining you. There is no idea that can't be contained by life: Asian life, European life, certainly black life. My plays are about love, honor, duty, betrayal - things humans have written about since the beginning of time.

Your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel.

We were land-based agrarian people from Africa. We were uprooted from Africa, and we spent 200 years developing our culture as black Americans. And then we left the South. We uprooted ourselves and attempted to transplant this culture to the pavements of the industrialized North. And it was a transplant that did not take. I think if we had stayed in the South, we would have been a stronger people. And because the connection between the South of the 20's, 30's and 40's has been broken, it's very difficult to understand who we are.

Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.

Freedom is heavy. You got to put your shoulder to freedom. Put your shoulder to it and hope your back holds up.