Q&A: A grateful Tarell Alvin McCraney thanks grandmothers in 'Head of Passes'

Eight months after winning the Oscar for adapted screenplay with director Barry Jenkins for "Moonlight," Tarell Alvin McCraney might be expected to be leading a different life. After all, most outside of the theater world had not known the MacArthur fellow before he took the Academy Awards stage.

But life's actually pretty much the same, McCraney said.

"It's still equally as busy as it was before," he said. "My priorities didn't shift, and so the work around those priorities is still largely never done."

Those priorities include completing summer programming for a Miami community center and staging of his play "Wig Out!" in Washington, D.C. And as rehearsals kicked off in Los Angeles for his play "Head of Passes," which opened at the Mark Taper Forum on Sunday, OWN announced that he'd be creating a TV series for Oprah Winfrey's network.

Oh, and in July he began his stint as chair of the Yale School of Drama's playwriting department.

During "Head of Passes" rehearsals, The Times spoke with McCraney, 36,