Anna Deavere Smith

Playwright, actor and professor Anna Deavere Smith, hailed by Newsweek as the most exciting individual in American theatre, uses her singular brand of theatre to explore issues of community, character and diversity in America. She was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Foundation genius Fellowship for creating a new form of theatre — a blend of theatrical art, social commentary, journalism and intimate reverie.

Smith has a recurring role on the new Showtime series Nurse Jackie, played National Security Advisor Nancy McNally on NBCs The West Wing, and has appeared in such films as Rachel Getting Married, Philadelphia and The American President. She is perhaps best known as the author and performer of two one-woman plays about racial tensions in America — Fires in the Mirror (Obie Award-winner and runner-up for the Pulitzer) and Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 (Obie-winner and Tony Award nominee). Interviewing subjects from all walks of life, Smith recreates their words in performance, transforming herself into an astonishing number of characters.

A tenured professor at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, Smith founded the Institute on the Arts & Civic Dialogue at Harvard (now at NYU). Her latest book is Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts. Her most recent play, Let Me Down Easy, which explores the resilience and vulnerability of the human body, will open on Off-Broadway's Second Stage Theatre this fall. She is currently researching a new play she is writing called The Americans at the Center for American Progress as Artist-in-Residence.

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• professor royce carlton

[Dan5819]

Saw her live two months ago, and it was amazing!!

[watch84]

they look bored but i was like a little kid in a candy store

[watch84]

this interview was at USC Columbia i was in the audience and she was sooooooo captivating