Anna Deavere Smith
Anna Deavere Smith | |
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![]() Smith in 2009
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Born | Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
September 18, 1950
Occupation | Actress, playwright, professor |
Website | Official website Projects website |
Anna Deavere Smith (born September 18, 1950) is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is currently the artist-in-residence at the Center for American Progress. Smith is widely known for her roles as National Security Advisor Dr. Nancy McNally in The West Wing (2000–06), and as hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus in the Showtime series Nurse Jackie (2009–15). She is a recipient of The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (2013), one of the richest prizes in the American arts, with a remuneration of $300,000, and was named the Jefferson Lecturer for 2015.
Contents
Early life
Smith was born in Baltimore, Maryland,[1] the daughter of Anna (née Young), an elementary school principal, and Deaver Young Smith Jr., a coffee merchant.[2] She has four younger siblings.[3] Smith is an alumna of the historic Western High School.[4] She then studied acting at Beaver College (now Arcadia University), graduating in 1971.[3][5] She received her M.F.A. in Acting from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California.[5]
Career
Theater
At the beginning of her career, Smith appeared in a wide range of stage productions, including the role of Mistress Quickly in an Off-Broadway production of Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor with the Riverside Shakespeare Company,[6] produced by Joseph Papp and the New York Shakespeare Festival, set in New Orleans in post-Civil War America. For the role, Smith transformed herself into a "Cajun voodoo woman," an indication of the actress' transformational power that would manifest itself in her future work.[7]
Smith is best known for her "documentary theatre" style in plays such as Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, both of which featured Smith as the sole performer of multiple and diverse characters and won her the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show two years in a row. Fires in the Mirror dealt with the 1991 Crown Heights riot; Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 dealt with the 1992 Los Angeles riots.[8] Both of these plays were constructed using material solely from interviews.[8] House Arrest (2000) and Let Me Down Easy (2008) continued in this style.
Let Me Down Easy, which explored the resiliency and vulnerability of the human body, debuted at the Long Wharf Theatre in January 2008.[9] It was also performed at the American Repertory Theater in September and October 2008.[10] A revised version of the show had its New York City premiere Off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre in October 2009[11] and enjoyed favorable reviews[12] and an extension into January 2010.[13] It was also a featured program as part of PBS's Great Performances series on January 13, 2012. She debuted her one-woman play, The Arizona Project in Phoenix, Arizona, in November 2008. The piece, which explored "women's relationships to justice and the law," was commissioned by Bruce Ferguson, director of Future Arts Research (F.A.R.), a new artist-driven research program at Arizona State University in Phoenix.[14]
As of July 2009, Smith is the artist-in-residence with the Center for American Progress and is developing a new show called The Americans, which documents change in Washington, D.C.[15]
In Spring 2012, Smith was the first artist-in-residence at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, a program founded by the Very Rev Dr Jane Shaw, Dean of Grace Cathedral, who shared Smith's vision of "bringing together art and religion".[16][17][18] Commissioned by Grace Cathedral and the Cockayne Fund, Smith wrote and performed the play, On Grace, based on interviews relating to the meaning of God's grace.[19][20] The performances were accompanied by American cellist Joshua Roman.[21]
Film and television
Smith has appeared in several films, including Philadelphia (1993), The American President (1995), Rent (2005), and Rachel Getting Married (2008). She had recurring roles on The Practice (2000) and as Dr. Nancy McNally on The West Wing (2000–06). Smith also appeared as hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus in the Showtime dark comedy series Nurse Jackie, which premiered in June 2009.[22] Early in her television career, she appeared on the long running soap opera All My Children in the recurring role of "Hazel the shampoo girl".
In February 2014, Smith appeared as a mentor in Anna Deavere Smith: A YoungArts Masterclass, part of the HBO documentary series Masterclass.[23]
Teacher
Smith teaches in the Department of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. From 1990 to 2000, she was a professor in the drama department at Stanford University and prior to that taught at Carnegie Mellon University. She also teaches at NYU School of Law.[24]
Author
In 2000, Smith published her first book, Talk to Me: Travels in Media and Politics. In 2006, she released another, Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts – For Actors, Performers, Writers, and Artists of Every Kind.[24]
Honors
As a dramatist, Smith was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for Fires in the Mirror which won her a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show.[25] She was nominated for two Tony Awards in 1994 for Twilight: one for Best Actress and another for Best Play.[5] The play won her a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance and a Theatre World Award.[26][27]
Smith was one of the 1996 recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as the "genius grant."[28] She also won a 2006 Fletcher Foundation Fellowship for her contribution to civil rights issues,[27] as well as a 2008 Matrix Award from the New York Women in Communications, Inc.[29] In 2009, she won a Fellow Award in Theater Arts from United States Artists.[27]
She has received honorary degrees from University of Pennsylvania, Spelman College, Arcadia University, Bates College, Smith College, Skidmore College, Macalester College, Occidental College, Pratt Institute, Holy Cross College, Haverford College, Wesleyan University, School of Visual Arts, Northwestern University, Colgate University, California State University Sacramento, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wheelock College, Williams College, Yale University,[30] and the Cooper Union.[26]
The United Solo Theatre Festival board awarded her with the award for outstanding solo performer during the inaugural edition in November 2010.[31]
Smith won The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (2013), one of the richest prizes in the American arts with a remuneration of $300,000.[32]
In 2013, she received the 2012 National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama.[33] In 2015 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected her for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities, delivering a lecture entitled "On the Road: A Search for American Character".[34]
Works
Film
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1982 | Soup for One | Deborah | |
1987 | Unfinished Business | Anna | |
1993 | Philadelphia | Anthea Burton | |
1993 | Dave | Mrs. Travis | |
1995 | The American President | Robin McCall | |
2000 | Twilight: Los Angeles | Various | Writer and producer; adaptation of Smith's 1994 play |
2003 | The Human Stain | Mrs. Silk | |
2004 | The Manchurian Candidate | Political pundit | |
2005 | Rent | Mrs. Jefferson | |
2005 | Cry_Wolf | Headmaster Tinsley | |
2007 | The Kingdom | Maricella Canavesio | |
2007 | Life Support | Mrs. Wallace | |
2008 | Rachel Getting Married | Carol |
Television
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1983 | All My Children | Hazel | |
1997 | American Experience | Narrator | Episode: "Hawaii's Last Queen" |
2000 | The Practice | Kate Brunner | 4 episodes |
2000–06 | The West Wing | Dr. Nancy McNally | 20 episodes |
2001 | 100 Centre Street | Ms. Davis | Episode: "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" |
2001 | Life 360 | Herself | Episode: "Six Degrees of Separation" |
2002 | Presidio Med | Dr. Letty Jordan | 4 episodes |
2009–2015 | Nurse Jackie | Gloria Akalitus | |
2013 | The Surgeon General | Vice President | TV movie |
2014 | Anna Deavere Smith: A YoungArts Masterclass | Herself / Mentor | Documentary |
2015 | Black-ish | Alicia | |
2015 | Madam Secretary | Attorney General Mary Campbell |
Stage
Year | Title | Role | Location | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
1974 | Horatio | The savage | American Conservatory Theater | |
1976 | Alma, the Ghost of Spring Street | Marie Laveau | La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club | |
1980 | Mother Courage and Her Children | Kiowa woman / Their children | New York Shakespeare Festival | |
1982–83 | On the Road | Clear Space Theatre Berkeley Repertory Theatre |
||
1983 | The Merry Wives of Windsor | Mistress Quickly | Off-Broadway | |
1983 | A Birthday Party and Aunt Julia's Shoes | Ward-Nasse Gallery | Original poems | |
1983 | Tartuffe | Doreen | Geva Theatre Center | |
1984 | Charlayne Hunter Gault | Ward-Nasse Gallery | ||
1984 | Aye, Aye, Aye, I'm Integrated | The American Place Theatre | ||
1985 | Building Bridges, Not Walls | National Conference of Women and the Law | ||
1986 | On the Road, ACT | American Conservatory Theater | ||
1988 | Voices of Bay Area Women | Phoenix Theatre, San Francisco American Conservatory Theater |
||
1988 | Chlorophyll Post-Moderism and the Mother Goddess: A Convers/ Ation | Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre | ||
1992 | Fires in the Mirror | Various | The Public Theater | Writer; one-woman show |
1994 | Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 | Various | Cort Theatre | Writer; one-woman show |
1997, 1999 | House Arrest | Arena Stage Mark Taper Forum |
Writer | |
2008 | The Arizona Project | Various | Herberger Theater Center | Writer; one-woman show |
2008–10 | Let Me Down Easy | Various | Long Wharf Theatre American Repertory Theater Second Stage Theatre |
Writer; one-woman show |
2014 | On Grace | Various | Harris Theater | Writer; collaboration with Joshua Roman |
2015 | Reclaiming Grace in the Face of Adversity[35] | Various | One-woman show | |
2015 | Never Givin' Up[36] | The Broad Stage | One-woman show | |
2015 | Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education — The California Chapter[37] | Various | Berkeley Repertory Theatre | One-woman show |
Bibliography
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References
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- ↑ "'Let Me Down Easy Reviews" criticometer.blogspot.com, October 8, 2009
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- ↑ Krasny, Michael, “Art and Spirituality at Grace Cathedral”, Forum with Michael Krasny, KQED, February 1, 2012
- ↑ “Announcing Our First Artist in Residence: Anna Deavere Smith” gracecathedral.org, December 13, 2011
- ↑ Arobateau, Red Jordan, "Red and Anna Deavere Smith", Red Jordan Arobateau Blog, February 23, 2012.
- ↑ Franco, Jean “On Grace – Anna Deavere Smith”
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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- ↑ 24.0 24.1 "Speaker biography" Royce Carlton Incorporated, accessed August 29, 2011
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External links
- Anna Deavere Smith at the Internet Movie Database
- Anna Deavere Smith at the Internet Broadway DatabaseLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Anna Deavere Smith PBS Now, 2006
- Anna Deavere Smith at TED
- Speech by Anna Deavere Smith at Bates College Commencement 2007 on YouTube
- Smith Weaves Multiple Stories of Healthcare Struggles into New Solo Performance – video report by Democracy Now!
- Use mdy dates from January 2014
- Articles with hCards
- Pages using authority control with parameters
- VIAF different on Wikidata
- 1950 births
- African-American academics
- African-American dramatists and playwrights
- American musical theatre actresses
- American soap opera actresses
- American stage actresses
- Center for American Progress people
- Living people
- MacArthur Fellows
- Actresses from Baltimore, Maryland
- Arcadia University alumni
- Tisch School of the Arts faculty
- American women dramatists and playwrights
- National Humanities Medal recipients
- Carnegie Mellon University faculty
- American television actresses
- African-American actresses
- American film actresses