Lynn Nottage Q&A inspires Year 11

by Rawnaq I and Rita W in Year 11

Lynn Nottage is an award-winning American playwright and screenwriter who remains the only woman to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama twice. She currently has MJ The Musical on Broadway right now. During her very busy schedule, we were fortunate enough as a year group to have had the opportunity to sit down with her in March and ask her a few questions via Zoom about her play, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, which Year 11s are studying for IGCSE English.

Some of the questions we asked were: “Why did you choose Ernestine to be the narrator?”, “What made Godfrey decide to marry Gerte so rapidly?” and “Why did you decide to include the fantasy movie moments?”. We found that her answers were very insightful, particularly the answer to why Godfrey married Gerte rapidly, when it was a rather bold choice for such a conservative character. The answers also solidified our own understanding of the text, as well as encouraging us to think beyond that. Choosing a less conventional play to study at GCSE has opened our eyes to many different views and stories and to be able to hear answers to the burning questions from the playwright herself was definitely a treat! We think it’s safe to say, with full confidence, that Lynn has definitely inspired us all and we are so, incredibly, grateful that she was able to give up some of her own time to talk to us.