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University of Hawai'i |
(808) 956-8856 Telephone |
For Immediate Release: |
November 2, 2000 |
Contact: Lurana O'Malley, Department of Theatre and Dance, 956-9609 Jim Manke, University and Community Relations, 956-6106
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| Anna Deavere Smith Inaugurates This Year's UH Manoa Distinguished Lecture Series |
Performance artist, playwright and Stanford professor Anna Deavere Smith whose twenty-year stage, film and television career earned her plaudits as "the most exciting individual in American theater" will inaugurate the 2000-2001 Distinguished Lecture Series at UH Manoa.
Smith will present her lecture entitled "Snapshots: Glimpses of America in Change" on stage at the Campus Center Ballroom Tuesday evening, November 28, at 7:00 p.m. She will be hosted by the Department of Theatre and Dance and is the first of three headliners who will visit the Manoa campus in this third year of the Manoa series.
Smith's body of work explores the multi-faceted national identity of the American character. Her plays, books and performances have been acclaimed by the media, critics and audiences across the country. In her lectures, Smith presents selected characters from her plays, giving audiences rare insights into the attitudes of ordinary people of race, class and gender.
In 1996, Smith was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship. She is author of the newly released Talk to Me: Listening between the Lines, and is creator of the Obie-award winning Fires on the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles 1992, as well as the more recent House Arrest.
She has appeared in the major motion pictures Philadelphia, Dave, and The American President, and in the current television series The West Wing and The Practice.
Smith teaches at Stanford University where she is the Ann O'Day Maples Professor of the Arts.
Smith's lecture is free and open to the public. She will sign copies of her books following the lecture.
The UH Manoa Distinguished Lecture Series was inaugurated in 1998 with overall coordination provided by Professor of English David Baker. In past years, the Series has brought such notables as novelist Michael Ondaatje and astronomer Sir Martin Rees to appearances before standing-room-only audiences.
During the current academic year, world-renowned ocean explorer-adventurer Robert Ballard will visit in February, and noted cultural theorist and geographer David Harvey in April.
For further information, including questions about disability access, telephone 956-9405. Sign language interpretation will be provided for Smith's lecture.
Biography
Anna Deavere Smith
Playwright Actor Professor
As an actor, playwright and teacher, Anna Deavere Smith has built a remarkably wide-ranging and respected career.
Hailed as "The most exciting individual in American theater by Newsweek in 1993, and profiled on 60 Minutes, Ms. Smith explores the American character and our multifaceted national identity - in works acclaimed by the media, critics and audiences across the country.
The MacArthur Foundation awarded Ms. Smith a prestigious "Genius" fellowship in 1996, saying she "has created a new form of theatre - a blend of theatrical art, social commentary, journalism and intimate reverie."
Looking at controversial events from multiple points of view, Ms. Smith's work combines the journalistic technique of interviewing her subjects with the art of interpreting their works through her performance. The New York Times called her "the ultimate impressionist: she does people's souls.
As playwright and performer, Ms. Smith has, over two decades, created a body of theatrical work which she calls On the Road: Search for American Character.
Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities, which explores the 1991 clash between Jews and Blacks in that New York community, was the runner-up for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize, earned her an Obie and numerous other awards, and was broadcast on PBS as part of The American Playhouse series.
Twilight: Los Angeles 1992, which examined civil unrest following the Rodney King verdict, received critical acclaim on Broadway and in Los Angeles. Ms. Smith received two Tony nominations for Twilight, as well as an Obie, a Drama Desk Award, two NAACP Theatre Awards and numerous other honors.
In film, Ms. Smith has played roles in Ivan Reitman's Dave and Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia. More recently she has appeared in Rob Reiner's The American President in which she played the White House Press Secretary. She has also appeared in the television series The West Wing and The Practice.
In addition to her roles as actor and playwright, Ms. Smith teaches at Stanford University, where she is Ann O'Day Maples Professor of the Arts. She is a native of Baltimore and currently lives in San Francisco.
