Anna Deavere Smith

Anna Deavere Smith is an actor, a teacher, a playwright, and the creator of an acclaimed series of one-woman plays based on her interviews with diverse voices from communities in crisis. She has won two Obie Awards, two Tony nominations for her play Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, and a MacArthur Fellowship, and she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her play Fires in the Mirror. She has had roles in the films Philadelphia, An American President, and The Human Stain, and she has worked in television on The Practice, Presidio Med, and The West Wing. She is the founder and director of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue and is a University Professor at New York University, with an appointment in the Tisch School of the Arts and an affiliation with the School of Law.