Anna Deavere Smith

Discover the life and impact of Anna Deavere Smith (b. 1950), the American actress, playwright, and educator known for her powerful solo documentary theater works like Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992.

Introduction

Anna Deavere Smith is a singular figure in American theater and public discourse. She has pioneered a form of verbatim/documentary theater in which she interviews real people, then embodies them (with voice, posture, mannerism) on stage, giving audiences a mosaic of voices rather than a single narrative. Her work probes race, identity, community, justice, and the complexities of American life. As actress, educator, author, and cultural interlocutor, Smith bridges performance and social inquiry in a way few others do.

Early Life and Family

• Anna Deavere Smith was born on September 18, 1950 in Baltimore, Maryland.

• Her mother, Anna Rosalind (née Young), was an elementary school educator; her father, Deaver Young Smith Jr., was a coffee merchant.

• She was the eldest of five children.

• She grew up in a racially segregated Baltimore, attending both majority-Black and majority-white schools as integration took place.

• As a child, she experienced intense shyness, but also demonstrated a talent for mimicry, which later became central to her theatrical voice.

Education & Early Influences

• Smith attended Western High School in Baltimore.

• She earned her B.A. from Beaver College (now part of Arcadia University) in 1971.

• She then pursued a M.F.A. in Acting from the American Conservatory Theater (San Francisco).

• During her undergraduate years, Smith’s awareness of racial dynamics and social justice deepened; she began exploring how story, voice, and identity intersect.

Theatrical & Creative Career

Verbatim Theater & Solo Performances

Smith is best known for creating solo performances based on interviews — sometimes called documentary theatre or verbatim theatre. She gathers real voices, edits them into monologues, and performs multiple characters, often with minimal props or costume changes, relying on voice, gesture, and physical presence.

Some of her most influential works:

• Fires in the Mirror (1993) — based on interviews following the Crown Heights riot (Brooklyn, 1991). She interviewed over 100 people involved or affected; the play was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

• Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (1994) — exploring the 1992 Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King verdict. She interviewed some 300 people and performed many perspectives herself. It garnered Tony nominations and broad acclaim.

• Let Me Down Easy (2008) — this work examines issues around illness, the body, healthcare, and social systems.

• The Arizona Project (2008) — a play focusing on women, justice, and the law.

• Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education (2015) — addresses the school-to-prison pipeline, inequality, and education in America.

Her method often involves creating a “portrait” of America via its varied voices, resisting singular narration or moralizing, and leaving the audience to inhabit multiple perspectives.

Acting, Film & Television

Smith has also had a significant presence on stage, screen, and television:

• On TV, she is known for Dr. Nancy McNally on The West Wing (2000–2006).

• She played Gloria Akalitus, hospital administrator, in Nurse Jackie (2009–2015).

• She appeared in All My Children early in her TV career.

• In film, she has taken roles in The Human Stain (2003), Rachel Getting Married (2008), The American President (1995), among others.

Her performance style often brings authenticity and depth, drawing on her theatrical listening and transformation techniques.

Educational & Institutional Roles

• Smith is a professor in the Department of Art & Public Policy at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

• She has taught at Stanford University (1990–2000), Carnegie Mellon, and formerly at the University of Southern California.

• She founded the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue (IACD) at NYU, which encourages socially engaged art.

Themes & Contributions

• Voice & Listening: At the heart of her work is the idea that narratives are multiple, complex, and situated. She gives voice to others not by impersonating, but by listening deeply and embodying their speech and demeanor.

• Social Inquiry through Art: Her plays act as civic mirrors, reflecting tensions around race, justice, inequality, education, and community. She uses theater as a space for public conversation rather than passive entertainment.

• Blurring Genres: Her style straddles journalism, documentary, theater, oral history, and performance. She revives the stage as a place for social inquiry, not just storytelling.

• Nonjudgmental Complexity: Often, she resists telling the audience what to think; instead she presents voices in their tensions, asking us to sit with ambiguity.

Honors & Awards

• In 1993, Fires in the Mirror was a Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist.

• She has received the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship (1996).

• She was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama in 2012 or 2013.

• In 2015, she delivered the Jefferson Lecture, the highest honor in the humanities from the U.S. federal government.

• She won the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 2013.

• She’s earned numerous honorary doctorates and degrees from various universities.

Notable Quotes & Reflections

Here are a few representative reflections from Smith — not necessarily short aphorisms, but statements that reveal her philosophy:

“I am not a voice for anybody. I want to hear from people because they know what I don’t. They’re giving me voice.”

“How shall we gather?” (She often asks this as a framing question in her work, especially in updated versions of Twilight: Los Angeles.)

“Hope has to do not with thinking everything’s going to be OK, but seeing that it’s not and then you move anyway.”

These lines show her emphasis on listening, humility, movement, and relational dynamics.

Lessons from Anna Deavere Smith

1. Art as civic engagement — Smith’s career reminds us that theater can be a vehicle for public inquiry, not just entertainment.

2. Radical listening matters — her method starts with humility: we listen, reflect, then embody voices.

3. Complexity over closure — she resists easy answers; her works ask us to live in tensions rather than rush to resolution.

4. Flexibility of identity — by performing many identities, Smith shows how our social information (race, class, region) intersects and shifts.

5. Continual learning — her adaptation of works over decades (adding to Twilight, for instance) shows that reflection is never “finished.”

Conclusion

Anna Deavere Smith is more than an actress or playwright — she is a cultural interlocutor who channels a chorus of American voices. Her work challenges us to listen harder, to sit with discomfort, and to see communities as stitched from many threads, not a single narrative. Whether in theater, television, film or academia, her influence is a reminder that art and justice walk together.

If you’d like, I can also provide a chronological timeline of her works, or a guide to watching key performances of her plays or televised roles. Which would you prefer next?