Anna Deavere Smith's 'NOTES FROM THE FIELD' Opens Tonight at Second Stage

Second Stage Theatre's New York Premiere production of NOTES FROM THE FIELD: DOING TIME IN EDUCATION, the latest work created, written and performed by groundbreaking theatre artist Anna Deavere Smith with music composed and performed by Marcus Shelby and directed by Leonard Foglia, opens tonight, November 2, 2016 at the Tony Kiser Theatre (305 West 43rd Street).

One of the most hailed and provocative theatre artists of our time, Anna Deavere Smith, leads a new installation of powerful first-person storytelling inNOTES FROM THE FIELD: DOING TIME IN EDUCATION. Urgent and inspiring, it depicts the personal accounts of students, parents, teachers and administrators caught in America's school-to-prison pipeline, as they experience in their wider communities the inequities of poverty, lack of opportunity, and over-aggressive policing. Investigating a justice system that pushes minors from poor communities out of the classroom and into incarceration, NOTES FROM THE FIELD: DOING TIME IN EDUCATION shines a light on a lost generation of American youth. Drawn from interviews with more than 250 people living and working within a challenged system, Anna Deavere Smith continues her mastery of the documentary solo performance by stimulating awareness and ultimately, change for the better.

The production features scenic design by Riccardo Hernandez, costume design by Ann Hould-Ward, lighting design by Howell Binkley, sound design by Dan Moses Schreier, and projection design by Elaine McCarthy.

NOTES FROM THE FIELD is a co-production with Boston's American Repertory Theatre, where it will be performed August 20 - September 17. An earlier version of the work was developed and performed at Berkeley Repertory Theatre under the direction of Leah C. Gardner in the summer of 2015.

NOTES FROM THE FIELD is the first in Second Stage Theatre's 2016-17 mainstage season, which includes Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Tracy Letts' MAN FROM NEBRASKA, directed by David Cromer, and Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Bruce Norris' A PARALLELOGRAM, directed by Michael Greif.

Anna Deavere Smith (Creator/Writer/Performer). Anna Deavere Smith is an actress and playwright and returns to Second Stage Theatre following the 2009 New York premiere of her one-person show, Let Me Down Easy, focused on health care in the U.S. She is said to have created a new form of theatre. She has created more than 18 one-person shows based on hundreds of interviews, most of which deal with social issues. Twilight: Los Angeles, about the Los Angeles race riots of 1992, was performed around the country and on Broadway. Three of her plays have been broadcast onAmerican Playhouse and Great Performances (PBS). In popular culture you have seen her in "Nurse Jackie," "Black-ish," "Madame Secretary," "The West Wing," The American President, Rachel Getting Married, Philadelphia, others. Books include Letters to a Young Artist and Talk to Me: Listening Between the Lines. She is founder and director of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at New York University. Recently she was named the 2015 Jefferson Lecturer by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The lecture, established in 1972, is the highest honor the federal government confers for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities. Prizes include the National Humanities Medal presented by President Obama, a MacArthur fellowship, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Award, two Tony nominations, and two Obies. She was runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize for her play Fires in the Mirror. She has received several honorary degrees, among them from Yale University, Juilliard, the University of Pennsylvania, Spelman, Williams, Northwestern, and Radcliffe. She serves on the boards of the Museum of Modern Art, the Aspen Institute, the American Museum of Natural History, and Grace Cathedral-San Francisco. She is a University Professor at New York University.

Leonard Foglia (Director): Original Broadway productions: Master Class (West End, National tour), Thurgood (filmed for HBO), The People in The Picture (Roundabout). Broadway revivals: The Gin Game, On Golden Pond, Wait Until Dark. Off-Broadway: Let Me Down Easy (filmed for PBS),The Stendhal Syndrome, One Touch of Venus, If Memory Serves, Lonely Planet. Regional: Unusual Acts of Devotion, Distracted, Paper Doll, The Secret Letters of Jackie and Marilyn, The Subject Was Roses, A Coffin in Egypt, God's Man in Texas. Opera: World premieres of Moby Dick (filmed for PBS), Everest, Cold Mountain, The End of the Affair, Three Decembers. Also, Dead Man Walking at NYCO. As a librettist, he wrote (and directed) El Pasado Nunca Se Termina/The Past Is Never Finished, with composer Jose Martinez, commissioned and premiered at Lyric Opera of Chicago; A Coffin In Egypt with composer Ricky Ian Gordon and Cruzar La Cara De La Luna/To Cross The Face Of The Moon with composer Martinez, both commissioned and premiered at Houston Grand Opera and have played across the country as well as at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.

Under the artistic direction of Carole Rothman, Second Stage Theatre produces a diverse range of premieres and new interpretations of America's best Contemporary Theatre, including 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner Between Riverside and Crazy by Stephen Adly Guirgis; 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner Next to Normal by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey; 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegria Hudes; Dear Evan Hansenby Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, and Steven Levenson; The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown; Dogfight by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul and Peter Duchan;By the Way, Meet Vera Stark by Lynn Nottage; Trust and Lonely, I'm Not by Paul Weitz; The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Kristoffer Diaz;Everyday Rapture by Dick Scanlan and Sherie Rene Scott; Let Me Down Easy by Anna Deavere Smith; Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo; Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl; The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane; Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin; Jitney by August Wilson; Jar the Floor by Cheryl L. West; Uncommon Women and Others by Wendy Wasserstein;Crowns by ReGina Taylor; Saturday Night by Stephen Sondheim; Afterbirth: Kathy & Mo's Greatest Hits by Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy; This Is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan; Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants by Ricky Jay; Coastal Disturbances by Tina Howe; A Soldier's Play by Charles Fuller;Little Murders by Jules Feiffer; The Good Times Are Killing Me by Lynda Barry; and Tiny Alice by Edward Albee.

The company's more than 130 citations include the 2009 Tony Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Musical (Alice Ripley, Next to Normal) and Best Score (Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, Next to Normal); the 2007 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (Julie White, The Little Dog Laughed); the 2005 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical (Rachel Sheinkin, ...Spelling Bee) and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Dan Fogler, ...Spelling Bee); the 2002 Tony Award for Best Director of a Play (Mary Zimmerman for Metamorphoses); the 2002 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work, 29 Obie Awards, eight Outer Critics Circle Awards, two Clarence Derwent Awards, 13 Drama Desk Awards, nine Theatre World Awards, 17 Lucille Lortel Awards, the Drama Critics Circle Award and 23 AUDELCO Awards.

In 1999, Second Stage Theatre opened The Tony Kiser Theatre, its state-of-the-art, 296-seat theatre, designed by renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. In 2002, Second Stage launched "Second Stage Theatre Uptown" series to showcase the work of up and coming artists at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre. The Theatre supports artists through several programs that include residencies, fellowships and commissions, and engages students and community members through education and outreach programs.

In 2015 Second Stage Theatre purchased the historic Helen Hayes Theatre, located at 240 W. 44th Street. With this new home, Second Stage will be the only theatre company on Broadway dedicated exclusively to the development and presentation of contemporary American theatrical productions. The company will continue to lease and operate their original theatres on the city's Upper West Side and in Midtown Manhattan. Second Stage Theatre has enlisted David Rockwell and The Rockwell Group to make renovations and updates to the 103 year old landmark building. They will begin renovations on the theatre in 2016 and plans for its first Broadway production to be staged in the Hayes during the 2017-18 season.