It was staged across the country, including off-Broadway in New York, to much acclaim.
Now, EW can exclusively confirm thatNotes From the Fieldhas been adapted into a film by HBO.
The film, directed by Kristi Zea, maintains the theatricality and intensity of the original play.
Credit: BREE NEWSOME; Photo by Scott McDermott
The film, executive produced by Gary Goetzman and Smith, will premiere Feb. 24 across HBO platforms.
Simultaneously, or just before that, Jonathan Demme had come.
Of course, I said yes.
DENISE DODSON; Photo by Scott McDermott
I had worked with him before, and he is the king of performance movies.
And then, as you know, welost Jonathan last spring.
Thats how it came to be.
JAMAL HARRISON BRYANT; Photo by Scott McDermott
This has been my lifes work, going around America and interviewing people and then performing them.
And thats really my great love for this country.
Most of the plays that I have done do have a social significance.
[Laughs] Over these years, Ive worked very hard to develop my skills.
The simple matter is that I really do study the people.
I study them very carefully.
I am not an impersonator.
I have a different objective.
An impersonator wants to make you laugh.
I think of myself as making portraits.
I live with that.
Ive been teaching for a very long time.
Ive taught and I dont want to use the word privileged what I call the fancy people.
Now Ive been at NYU, at Tisch, for 16 years.
I got disconnected from, frankly, my roots, which were my mother and all of her friends.
Most of my aunts.
I come from two big families six on my fathers side, eight on my mothers side.
My mother taught very poor children, and there was always possibility.
I was blown away.
Emily said in that fabulous Oxford-trained British accent, Oh, well whatever happened to mischief?
That was it for me.
I was like, Okay, this is how Im spending the next couple years of my life.
Because thats right: Rich kids get mischief, poor kids get pathologized and incarcerated.
I lived in the room with them for almost a month and a half, really.
I dont know what Im doing!
[Laughs] I gotta figure it out.
It wasnt unlike the same process that Ive been using for years to make plays.
This conversation does seem to be moving a bit more into the mainstream.
Do you think that doing this movie can help further expand it?Oh yeah, sure.
By diverse, I dont just mean racially diverse.
So hopefully Im able to attract a younger audience.
Thats what I mean when I say diverse and Im hoping that happens.
The way that happens is with films.
Its in the films that make their way into these schools.
Kids are still performingTwilightnow, and I wroteTwilightin 92, 93.
Theres this way that my plays are history.
Theyre historical documents; again, theyre about American culture, America striving to become its best.
My plays are all about that march to the more perfect union.
These plays have a great potential for high schools and colleges.
If it werent made into a film, it wouldnt have that value, I think.
What do we believe in, that we would allow this to happen to our country?
It was out of that Department of Justice that we get this chronicle.
If that happens in an administration, its our job to do something about.
I think President Obama was always calling us to come forward as citizens and pick up the mantle.
I think there are a lot of people doing that in a lot of different ways right now.
