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"The Arts are the -Howard Zinn
2003 |
Arcadia University), graduating in 1971. She
received her M.F.A. in Acting from the American Conservatory Theater in San
Francisco, California. Career
Theater
Smith is best known for her "documentary theatre" style in plays such as
Fires in the Mirror and Twilight:
Los Angeles 1992, both of which featured Smith as the sole performer
of multiple and diverse characters and won her the Drama
Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show two years in a row. Fires
in the Mirror dealt with the 1991 Crown Heights Riot. Twilight: Los Angeles
1992 dealt with the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Both of these plays were
constructed using material solely from interviews and other pieces of the
archive. House Arrest in 2000 and Let Me Down Easy
in 2008 continued in this style. Let
Me Down Easy,
which centered around an exploration of the meaning of the word "grace," debuted at the
Long Wharf Theatre in January 2008.[2]
It was also performed at the American Repertory Theater that fall.[3]
and will have its New York City premiere at Second Stage Theatre in October 2009 [4].
She debuted her latest one-woman play, The Arizona Project in Phoenix,
Arizona, in November 2008. The piece, which explored "women's
relationships to justice and the law," was commissioned by Bruce
Ferguson, director of Future Arts Research (F.A.R.), a new artist-driven
research program at Arizona State University in Phoenix.[5] As of July 2009 Smith is the artist in
residence with Center for American Progress and is
developing a new show called The Americans documenting change in
Washington,
DC [6]. Earlier in her career, Smith had
appeared in a wide range of stage productions, including the role of Mistress
Quickly in an Off Broadway production of Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor with the Riverside Shakespeare Company, produced by Joseph
Papp and the New York Shakespeare Festival, set in New
Orleans in post-Civil War America.
For the role, Smith transformed herself into a "Cajun voodoo woman"
- an indication of the actress's transformational power that would manifest
itself in her future work.[7] Film and television
Smith has appeared in several films,
including Philadelphia, The American President, and
"Rachel Getting Married." She had recurring roles on The West Wing (National Security Advisor Dr.
Nancy McNally) and The
Practice. Smith appears as hospital administrator Mrs. Akalitus
in the Showtime
dark
comedy series Nurse Jackie, which premiered in June 2009.[8] Teacher
Smith
teaches in the Department of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. From 1990 to 2000 she was a
professor in the drama department at Stanford University. She also teaches at NYU School of Law. Author
In 2000 Smith published her first book, Talk
to Me: Travels in Media and Politics. In 2006 she released another, Letters
to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts-For Actors,
Performers, Writers, and Artists of Every Kind. Honors
As a dramatist Smith was nominated for
the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for Fires in
the Mirror which won her a Drama
Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show. She was nominated for
two Tony
Awards in 1994 for Twilight. One for Best Actress and
another for Best Play. The play won her a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo
Performance and a Theatre World Award. Smith was one of the 1996 recipients of
the MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as the
"genius grant." She also won a 2006 Fletcher Foundation Fellowship for her
contribution to civil rights issues as well as a 2008 Matrix Award from the New York Women in
Communications, Inc.[9] She has received honorary degrees from Arcadia University, Bates
College, Bryn Mawr College, Smith
College, Skidmore
College, Macalester College, Occidental College, Pratt
Institute, Holy Cross College, Haverford
College, Wesleyan University, School of Visual Arts, Northwestern University, Colgate University, California State University Sacramento,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, Wheelock College, and the Cooper
Union. Filmography
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Copyright (c) 2002-11, Subversive Theatre Collective. All rights reserved. |
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About the Author