Playwright, actor, and professor Anna Deavere Smith uses her singular brand of theater to highlight issues of community, character, and diversity in America. The MacArthur Foundation honored Smith with the “Genius” Fellowship for creating “a new form of theatre—a blend of theatrical art, social commentary, journalism, and intimate reverie.” Best known for crafting one-woman shows based on conversations with real people from all walks of life, Smith turns her interviews into scripts, transforming herself into an astonishing number of characters.

At Goucher, Smith will perform her show, Doing Time in Education: The School-to-Prison Pipeline. Anna Deavere Smith created the Pipeline Project as a way to apply her signature form of documentary theater to investigate the school-to-prison pipeline—the cycle of suspension from school to incarceration that is prevalent among low-income Black, Brown, Latino, and Native-American youth. In the preliminary stages of developing the piece, she conducted interviews with hundreds of people who are involved in the pipeline at all levels: students, teachers, parents, police, thought and policy leaders, psychologists, community activists, and many more—including persons involved in the Goucher Prison Education Partnership.

Anna Deavere Smith will be speaking on campus as part of the Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Visiting Professorship Series.

Please visit the Goucher College Theme Semester site for events, workshops, stories, and information.

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