Playwright Anna Deavere Smith to Participate in Duke Symposium
Performer to be part of two-day women's studies symposium exploring racial and gender perspectives on globalization
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Anna Deavere Smith, a MacArthur "Genius" Award winner and one of America's most celebrated new playwrights and actors, will speak at Duke University in February as part of a two-day symposium on "Race and Gender in Global Perspective."
Smith is known for forming a blend of theatrical art, social commentary and journalism in her one-woman plays, including "Twilight Los Angeles -- 1992" about the Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King trial. In her work, she creates and performs dozens of characters who are based on information taken from interviews with real people affected by the riots.
In addition for her plays, Smith is known as a teacher and an actor in films such as "Philadelphia," "Dave" and "The American President." She also appears as National Security Adviser Nancy McNally on NBC's "The West Wing."
In "An Evening with Anna Deavere Smith," Smith will present selected characters from her plays to explore people's perceptions on race, class and gender. The event will be at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7, in Page Auditorium.
Tickets for the show will be $20 for the public and $12 for Duke students and can be ordered on the Web.
Smith's performance will kick off the two days of presentations on how race and gender affect, and are affected by, globalization. The second event begins at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 8, and will be held all day in the Richard White Auditorium on Duke's East Campus. Featured speakers at Saturday's event include: Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo (USC), Beverly Guy Sheftall (Spelman College), Kamala Visweswaran (University of Texas, Austin), Charlotte Bunch (Rutgers), Leith Mullings (CUNY) and Rhacel Parrenas (University of Wisconsin).
Saturday's symposium is open to the public, but requires registration. For information about registering, contact Pat Hoffman at 684-3655 or e-mail phoffman@duke.edu.
The symposium is sponsored by Duke's Council on Women's Studies. Smith's performance is sponsored by Women's Studies in conjunction with the Institute of the Arts.