Anna Deavere Smith facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Anna Deavere Smith
Smith in 1999
Born	(1950-09-18) September 18, 1950 (age 74) Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Education	Arcadia University (BA) American Conservatory Theater (MFA)
Occupation	Actress, playwright, professor

Anna Deavere Smith (born September 18, 1950) is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is famous for her acting roles on TV shows like The West Wing and Nurse Jackie. She also creates special plays where she acts out many different characters.

Anna Deavere Smith has received many important awards. These include The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 2013. In 2015, she was chosen as the Jefferson Lecturer. This is a very high honor for people who study the humanities. She also leads a group at New York University called the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue. This group helps connect art with important community discussions.

Early Life and Education

Anna Deavere Smith was born in 1950 in Baltimore, Maryland. Her mother was a school principal. Her father was a coffee merchant. She has four younger brothers and sisters.

When she was young, schools in Baltimore were just starting to allow all students to attend together. She went to both mostly Black and mostly white schools. She later attended Western High School, which was an all-girls school.

Smith studied acting at Beaver College, now called Arcadia University. She was one of only a few African-American women in her class. She graduated in 1971. After that, she earned a master's degree in acting. She got this degree from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California.

Acting and Playwriting Career

Starting in Theatre

Early in her career, Anna Deavere Smith acted in many plays. She even played a character in a Shakespeare play called The Merry Wives of Windsor. This play was set in New Orleans after the American Civil War. She was very good at changing herself to fit different characters.

Smith noticed how people talked and acted in different situations. She later shared that it was sometimes hard to get acting jobs. People didn't know how to place her because of her unique look and style.

Unique "Documentary Theatre" Plays

Anna Deavere Smith is best known for her special plays. These are called "documentary theatre" or "verbatim theatre". This means she uses exact words from interviews she does with real people. She then performs all the different characters herself.

Two of her most famous plays are Fires in the Mirror (1992) and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (1993).

• For Fires in the Mirror, she interviewed over 100 people. This play was about the 1991 Crown Heights riot.
• For Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, she talked to about 300 people. This play was about the 1992 Los Angeles riots. These riots happened after police officers were found not guilty of beating Rodney King.

In these plays, Smith performed all the characters herself. She won awards for these amazing one-person shows. Her plays House Arrest (2000) and Let Me Down Easy (2008) were also made in this style. Let Me Down Easy explored how strong and fragile the human body can be. It was even shown on PBS as part of Great Performances.

In 2008, Smith also created The Arizona Project. This play looked at how women relate to justice and the law.

Film and Television Roles

Stephen Gaghan and Smith at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival

Anna Deavere Smith has acted in many movies. Some of her films include Philadelphia (1993), Dave (1993), The American President (1995), and Rachel Getting Married (2008).

On television, she had important roles in several series:

• She played Dr. Nancy McNally on The West Wing from 2000 to 2006.
• She was hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus in the show Nurse Jackie from 2009 to 2015.
• She also appeared as Tina Krissman on the ABC show For the People (2018–19).

In 2015, she was a guest on the TV show Finding Your Roots. On the show, she learned about her family history. She found out she came from a long line of free people of color. Her great-great-grandfather, Basil Biggs, was a veterinarian. He was known as a wealthy African-American man in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

In 2017, Smith worked with Melissa McCarthy in the movie Can You Ever Forgive Me?. In 2022, she played Maud in the Netflix series Inventing Anna.

Teaching and Writing

Besides acting and writing plays, Anna Deavere Smith is also a teacher. She teaches at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She has also taught at other universities like Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon University.

She has written two books:

• Talk to Me: Travels in Media and Politics (2000)
• Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts (2006)

Awards and Honors

Anna Deavere Smith has won many awards for her work.

• In 1993, she was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Fires in the Mirror.
• She won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show for Fires in the Mirror.
• In 1994, she was nominated for two Tony Awards for her play Twilight.
• She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1996. This is sometimes called a "genius grant."
• In 2013, she won The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. This is one of the biggest art prizes in America.
• In 2013, President Barack Obama gave her the National Humanities Medal.
• In 2015, she gave the Jefferson Lecture, which is the highest honor for achievements in the humanities in the U.S. government.

She has also received honorary degrees from many universities. This means they recognized her achievements with a special degree.

Works

Film Roles

Television Roles

Stage Plays (Selected)

See also

In Spanish: Anna Deavere Smith para niños