Gish Prize Wnner Anna Deavere Smith to Speak at Grace Cathedral March 9

Art and Human Rights

Guests: Anna Deavere Smith and Robert McDuffie

Interlocutor: The Very Rev. Dr. Jane Shaw

 Event is free and Open to the Public

 

 

Anna Deavere Smith

Anna Deavere Smith is an actress and playwright, and is said to have created a new form of theater. Her prizes include a MacArthur fellowship, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Award, two Tony nominations, two Obies and others. She was runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize for her play Fires in the Mirror and has created over 15 one-person shows based on hundreds of interviews, most of which deal with social issues. These shows include Twilight: Los Angeles, about the Los Angeles race riots of 1992, and Let Me Down Easy, focused on health care in the United States. In popular culture she can be seen in Nurse Jackie, The West Wing, The American President, Rachel Getting Married, Philadelphia, and other movies and television programs. She has received several honorary degrees: among them from Juilliard, University of Pennsylvania, Spelman, Williams, Northwestern, and Radcliffe. She serves on the boards of the Museum of Modern Art, The Aspen Institute and Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. She received the Dean’s Medal from Stanford Medical School and is University Professor at NYU. Ms. Smith is a Trustee at Grace Cathedral, and served as the cathedral’s inaugural Artist in Residence in 2012. She continues to develop On Grace, the work she premiered at Grace Cathedral on February 17 and 18, 2012.

(Editor's note: Kerry Stowell and James Patterson saw Twilight: Los Angeles at Ford's Theater in Washington, DC)

 

 

 

Robert McDuffie

Robert McDuffie is a Grammy nominated artist that has appeared with most of the world's major orchestras. He recently gave the world premiere of Philip Glass’ Violin Concerto No. 2, and The American Four Seasons, a work written for Robert McDuffie with the Toronto Symphony.   In the 2010 - 2011 season, Mr. McDuffie completed a 30-city tour of the United States with the Venice Baroque Orchestra, where he paired the Glass Four Seasons with the Vivaldi Four Seasons. He then recorded The American Four Seasons with the London Philharmonic and Marin Alsop on Philip Glass' Orange Mountain Music label. His acclaimed Telarc and EMI recordings include the violin concertos of Mendelssohn, Bruch, Adams, Glass, Barber, Rozsa, Bernstein, William Schuman, and Viennese violin favorites. Future plans include a collaboration with Mike Mills, of the iconic rock band R.E.M., the Aspen Festival and performances with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas. He is founder of the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia and of the Rome Chamber Music Festival in Rome, Italy.

 

 

 This event is part of the Sunday morning Forum at Grace Cathedral, March 9 at 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Free and open  to the public. Deavere and McDuffiee will appear in a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr play at Grace on Monday, March 10. Tickets range from $30 to $150 for this performance and tickets may be purchased while available from GraceCathedral.org

James Patterson
Member, California Historical Society
Member, Alabama Historical Association
LM Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
1.415.516.3493