Anna Deavere Smith - November, 2009

American Theatre Wing: "America's leading practitioner of 'documentary theatre,' Anna Deavere Smith, discusses her newest work, Let Me Down Easy, and how it developed from its original commission by the Yale Medical School, through productions at Long Wharf Theater and American Repertory Theater, to its current Off-Broadway run at Second Stage. She also talks about making a career choice between being a social activist or theatre artist while in graduate school; how she began to create her unique works under the banner of On The Road in the early 80s and the process she has used to develop her plays; how she came to the decision to play all the roles in her multi-character works; whether she feels other performers can or should endeavor to mimic the original voices in her plays; why after tackling the Crown Heights riots in her breakthrough work Fires in the Mirror she next took up a thematically similar topic in Twilight: Los Angeles; what her role has been as an artist within think-tanks including Harvard's Institute for Arts and Civic Dialogue and Washington DC's Center for American Progress; why she felt compelled to write the book Letters to a Young Artist: Straight Up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts; and the reason she considers being called a 'clown' the highest form of compliment."