In this solo show at the Villa Aurelia, the highly acclaimed actress and writer Anna Deavere Smith will perform a staged reading of her work Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, which is part of her series entitled On the Road: A Search for American Character.

One of the most gifted writers and performers in the United States, Anna Deavere Smith is an award-winning actress, playwright, and professor. She is best known for her compelling “documentary theater” style in plays confronting fraught race relations in American cities. These include Fires in the Mirror, a work inspired by the 1991 Crown Heights riot, which premiered at the Public Theater in New York in May, 1992, and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, an exploration of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Featuring Smith as the sole performer of multiple and diverse characters and voices, they garnered her the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show two years in a row. In complex, layered monologues, Smith channels “the cacophony of voices at the city’s heart.” As an actress, she has also appeared in several feature films in addition to playing a recurring role in the television programs The West Wing and Nurse Jackie. Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, she received a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in addition to other awards in recognition of her work in the theater and advocacy of civil rights.

Anna Deavere Smith teaches at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and is writer in residence at the American Academy in Rome.

Entrance will not be permitted after 6pm.

The performance will be held in English.