Teacher Guide

Topdog/Underdog Lesson Plan

Introduction to Topdog/Underdog

Topdog/Underdog is Parks's tenth produced play, and she received a Pulitzer Prize in Drama for the work.

The play chronicles the relationship of two brothers named Lincoln and Booth, who were abandoned by their parents as adolescents. Lincoln works as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator in an arcade game where customers pretend to assassinate him. Booth is unemployed, but wants to be a Three-card Monte dealer--something Lincoln used to do until his friend Lonny was shot as a result of their con. The brothers are dependent on each other, yet resentful of their own interdependence: this creates constant friction between them, peppered with bouts of nostalgia about their shared childhood....

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