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The Birth of Anna Deavere Smith
Smith was born into an African-American family in Baltimore, Maryland. She is 72 years old. She combines theatre, journalism, and social activism in her work. Has 4 plays -
Early Education
She began attending school shortly after the city began integrating public schools, and she attended both majority-black and majority-white schools during her elementary and secondary school years. Her major past time as a child was listening to her grandfather's stories. William Shakespeare and her grandfather were her greatest inspirations. "Smith was raised in a racially segregated middle-class section of Baltimore. She was a shy child who nonetheless developed a talent for mimicry." -
Siblings
Smith was born to Anna Rosalind her mother who is an elementary school principal and her father Deaver Young Smith Jr who is a coffee merchant. She also has four siblings among whom she has only shared the name of Rosalind Allen, born on September 23rd 1957. -
California
She joined the faculty of the University of Southern California School of Dramatic Arts. -
Beaver College
She studied linguistics at Beaver College (now Arcadia University) near Philadelphia, earning her Bachelor of Arts degree, where she was one of seven African-American women in her class, graduating in 1971. -
American Conservatory Theatre
Smith moved to San Francisco to study acting where she earned a M.F.A (Masters of Fine Arts) degree. -
Conversation with Anna Deavere Smith
"The subject of this presentation is getting through things. My grandfather told me that if you say a word often enough, it becomes you. And so I started going around America in the early 1980s with a tape recorder, recording people and trying to become America word for word. You might think that insisting on becoming as much of America as I could had something to do with me trying to solve the problem of my own belongingness, growing up in a segregated city like Baltimore, Maryland." -
Fires in the Mirror
A year after race riots tore through Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Smith, then 41, starred in “Fires in the Mirror,” a one-woman show in which she embodied the personas of 26 people she interviewed about the riots, some of them black, some of them Jewish, most of them in the Crown Heights community. -
Pulitzer Price
Smith was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her play Fires in the Mirror, which also earned her a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show. -
Awards
Anna Deavere Smith’s play Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 was nominated for two Tony awards for best actress and best play and won the Drama Desk Award and Theater World Award for outstanding solo performance. -
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992
This is a solo performance by Smith where she reenacts the unfortunate incident of the 1992 distressing urban riots by establishing a combination of historical research to deliver a significant analysis of the underlying motives. Her play was a symbol of hope for every young black person. It proves that the voice of a black person is powerful and that it should be used. She was able to embody all of the individuals she interviewed by dressing, thinking, sounding, and acting like them. -
Professor
Smith joined the faculty at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. -
The Arizona Project
Anna launched a solo show, The Arizona Project, presented by ASU Future Arts Research at the Herberger Theater Center’s Stage West in Phoenix. The piece is inspired by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. It presents stories about her, as well as those of more than 30 women with relationships to the American judicial system, including prison system employees, incarcerated women, female lawyers, activists and others. -
Let Me Down Easy
She premiered a one-woman play, Let Me Down Easy, which explored the resiliency and vulnerability of the human body. Smith portrayed more than 20 characters, who spoke out about current events such as genocide in Rwanda, steroid use among athletes, and the U.S. health care system. -
Movies & Shows
While engaging in theatrical and academic pursuits, Smith continued to act on-screen. She appeared in several television shows, including Nurse Jackie (2009–15), and had recurring roles on The West Wing and Black-ish, among others. -
Award
President Obama awarded Smith the National Humanities Medal in 2013. -
Notes From The Field
Anna created another one woman play called Notes From the Field where she explores the lives of people who were incarcerated as youths, as well as those who are fighting for justice in a variety of ways. It is designed to hold a mirror up to society, which means not every character Smith portrays has a happy ending. -
Jefferson Lecture
The National Endowment for the Humanities had selected Anna for the Jefferson Lecture which is considered as the highest achievement in humanities. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, also exemplifies the values in the agency’s founding 1965 legislation, which noted that the “humanities belong to all the people of the United States.” -
The Pipeline Project
Smith has been working on The Pipeline Project, which explores the “school-to-prison pipeline” that pushes low income and minority students out of school and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. This project is being created in such a way as to focus on civic engagement. -
Marital Status
As of 2023, Anna Deavere Smith had at least 1 relationship previously. She has not been previously engaged. No children