The Dandelion Chandelier Luminary Café is the place to find a series of personal interviews with fascinating people who are stellar achievers in their chosen field of endeavor. Our Luminaries are sharing their origin stories, life philosophies, secret songs, guilty pleasures and hidden talents. It's guaranteed to be illuminating.
Anna Deavere Smith is a playwright, actress, professor and journalist. She has delivered riveting theatrical performances in her one-woman plays, including Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and Other Identities; Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992; and Notes from the Field. All were shaped from stories she elicited through recorded interviews, which she then personally portrayed on stage. Anna has portrayed Presidential advisers on television and in film in The West Wing, The American President, and Dave. She has played roles on the hit shows Nurse Jackie and Black-ish. She has served as a professor at Stanford and New York University. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship “genius” grant; a National Humanities Medal, which she received from President Barack Obama; and a George Polk Career Award, one of the top awards in journalism.
