Intense expression and psychological probing joined with a deep regard for the urban family have made playwright Ron Milner a pioneering force in the contemporary Afro-American theater. Indeed, emotional power has been the hallmark of his work since 1966, when his first play, Who's Got His Own, became the first work by a black to be staged at the American Place Theatre.

As a high school student in Detroit, Milner made his commitment to writing in a characteristically dispassionate and analytical way: "The more I read in high school, the more I realized that some tremendous, phenomenal things were happening around me.What happened in a Faulkner novel happened four times a day on Hastings Street. I thought why should these crazy people Faulkner writes about seem more important than my mother or my father or the dude down the street. Only because they had someone to write about...