2007 SPEAKERSMODERATORS

Anna Deavere Smith is an actor, playwright, teacher, and author. Known for her distinct brand of documentary-theater, she wrote and performed Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities which was the runner-up for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize and earned her an Obie and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 which received two Tony Award nominations, an Obie, and numerous other awards. Currently a professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Smith was the Ford Foundation’s first artist-in-residence as well as a MacArthur Fellow. She is founder of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue and has received honorary degrees from several universities. In 2006, Smith was the first Aspen Institute Harman-Eisner Artist-in- Residence.