Screening & Discussion of Anna Deavere Smith's film, Notes from the Field

100 University Drive,Prairie View TX 77446

19 October, 2022

Description

Adapted from Anna Deavere Smith’s award-winning play, the HBO Films presentation of Notes from the Field dramatizes accounts of students, parents, teachers and administrators caught in America’s school-to-prison pipeline, which pushes underprivileged, minority youth out of the classroom and into incarceration. Enlightening and empathetic, the film tackles questions of race and class through compelling first-person stories, drawing on the accounts of well-known figures like Rep. John Lewis, NAACP Legal Defense Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill, and activist Bree Newsome, as well as with everyday people struggling in a broken system. Culled from hours of interviews conducted by Smith with more than 250 people across the country, Notes from the Field showcases her extraordinary gift for transforming herself into diverse characters as she recreates each person’s speech patterns, movements and emotions. Filmed in front of a live audience and intercut with haunting video footage and photographs, Notes from the Field features accompaniment by jazz bassist Marcus Shelby. A Playtone Production in association with Jonathan Demme; executive produced by Gary Goetzman and Anna Deavere Smith; conceived and written by Anna Deavere Smith; directed by Kristi Zea; produced by Frank Garritano, Emily Cohen, and Steven Shareshian. Anna Deavere Smith is a playwright and actress. She’s credited with having created a new form of theater. Her plays, which focus on contemporary issues from multiple points of view, are composed of excerpts of hundreds of interviews. Plays and films based on them include Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, Let Me Down Easy, and Notes from the Field about the school-to-prison pipeline. Her work as an actress on television includes: Inventing Anna, The West Wing, Nurse Jackie and Black-ish. Mainstream movies include Philadelphia, The American President, Rachel Getting Married and Billy Crystal’s new movie Here Today. President Obama awarded Smith the National Endowment for the Humanities Medal. She’s the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, several Obie awards, a Drama Desk award, and the George Polk Career Award in Journalism and the Dean’s Medal from Stanford University School of Medicine. She was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize and nominated for two Tony Awards. She’s a professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She has several honorary doctorate degrees including those from Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Spelman College and Juilliard and Oxford.