Vantage Presents the Hit New York Show
LET ME DOWN EASY
by
Anna Deveare Smith
“VITALLY IMPORTANT, WIDE-RANGING AND ULTIMATELY VERY MOVING”—L.A. Times
“Ms. Smith is a national treasure, and her performance demands to be seen.”– SanDiego.com
“You won’t want to miss the tour de force”– Pat Launer, SD Metro
About Anna Deavere Smith
Called “the most exciting individual in American Theatre” by Newsweek, Anna Deavere Smith is said to have created a new form of theater. She has won numerous awards, among them two Obies, two Tony nominations, a Drama Desk Award, the USA Susan V. Berresford Award from United States Artists, and a MacArthur fellowship. She was runner up for the Pulitzer Prize for her play Fires In the Mirror. Her work combines the journalistic technique of interviewing her subjects with the art of interpreting their words through performance.
In addition to her award-winning plays, Smith has published two books, Talk to Me: Travels in Media and Politics (2000)and Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts-For Actors, Performers, Writers, and Artists of Every Kind (2006). She is founding director of Anna Deavere Smith Works, a nonprofit that convenes artists whose work addresses the world’s most pressing problems. Television and movie credits include “Nurse Jackie,” “The West Wing,” (as National Security Advisor Nancy McNally) “The American President,” and others.
As a dramatist Smith was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for Fires in the Mirrorwhich won her a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show. She was nominated for two Tony Awards in 1994 for Twilight: Los Angeles. 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.[ In 2009 she won a Fellow Award in Theater Arts from United States Artists. She has received honorary degrees from Juilliard, Arcadia University, Bates 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.
About Let Me Down Easy
For the past eight years, Smith has interviewed hundreds of Americans to create a virtuosic and moving show about the power and vulnerability of the body, the price of health, and the resilience of the human spirit. She speaks directly to our hopes and discomforts about life, death, whom we should take care of and who should (or should not) take care of us. This show is a bracing, poetic experience you won’t want to miss.
Additional Show Information:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQmVupiEMf0
http://www.sdrep.org/extpage8.aspx
Listen to Anna’s KPBS Interview: http://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/apr/28/anna-deavere-smith-takes-health-care-industry/
Watch The Bill Moyers Interview: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11132009/watch.html
Read The N.Y. Times Review: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/health/10easy.html
Listen to Art Rocks! Interview: http://filesource.abacast.com/wsradio/artrox/041311/segment2041311.mp3