Actress & Playwright
Anna Deavere Smith
Interview
Coming soon!
Notes from Evan Smith
"Anna Deavere Smith is a playwright and performance artist best known for the unique way in which she develops her one woman shows -- one part journalism and one part drama. Instead of creating her own characters, Smith takes to the streets with her tape recorder and interviews real people. She then performs the interviews in her show, recreating the voices verbatim. Her 1992 show Fires in the Mirror won an Obie award and was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize, and her 1994 show Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 also won an Obie award and was nominated for a Tony award. In 1996, she received the "Genius" award from the MacArthur Foundation. In addition, Smith is an accomplished actor, best known for playing National Security Advisor Nancy McNally on NBC's The West Wing. She is the author of Talk to Me: Travels in Media and Politics, in which she describes the process by which she developed her 1997 play House Arrest. Smith is also a tenured professor at New York University." - Evan Smith, Texas Monthly Talks, Broadcast 4.17.03
