I been with strangers all day and they treated me like family. I come in here to family and you treat me like a stranger.

Blacks have traditionally had to operate in a situation where whites have set themselves up as the custodians of the black experience.

I think all in all, one thing a lot of plays seem to be saying is that we need to, as black Americans, to make a connection with our past in order to determine the kind of future we're going to have. In other words, we simply need to know who we are in relation to our historical presence in America.

Between speeches and awards, you can find something to do every other week. It's hard to write. Your focus gets splintered. Once you put one thing in your calendar, that month is gone.

As soon as white folks say a play's good, the theater is jammed with blacks and whites.

For me, the original play becomes an historical document: This is where I was when I wrote it, and I have to move on now to something else.

I first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of a social tumult. I was a poet.