Anna Deavere Smith

ANNA DEAVERE SMITH (Playwright) is an actress, teacher, playwright, and the creator of the acclaimed “On the Road” series of one-woman plays based on her interviews with diverse voices from communities in crisis, including Fires in the Mirror; Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; Let Me Down EasY; and NOTES FROM THE FIELD.
A recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities Medal from President Obama, the MacArthur Fellowship, several Obie Awards, and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for Achievement in the Arts, among many other honors, her work also been nominated for two Tony Awards and been a runner up for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Onscreen, she has appeared in many films and television shows, including PHILADELPHIA, THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT, The West Wing, Black-ish, and Nurse Jackie. She is a professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and has several honorary doctorate degrees,  including from Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Spelman College, Juilliard, and Oxford. In 2019, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and she currently serves as a member of President Biden’s President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.