STAGE TUBE: PBS NewsHour Features Playwright Anna Deavere Smith

In the wake of the escalating debate on health care reform, Anna Deavere Smith's new one-woman show, "Let Me Down Easy," brings a new relevance to the problems of modern medicine that have plagued America for decades. NewsHour Senior Correspondent Judy Woodruff talks with Smith about portraying the human spirit, the importance of listening to the stories of many people, and the role the show can have in sparking conversation about the choices Americans face.
 
No stranger to the stage, Anna Deavere Smith is perhaps best known for her portrayals of real people, using their words, dialects and physical gestures to illuminate the large political and social issues of our time, such as race and economic disparity. "I understand now that one thing we can give from the arts is the ability to tell the human story," she tells Judy Woodruff. A supporter of health care reform, Anna Deavere Smith says the national debate influenced her play to some extent, but the question still remains - how will we make reform happen? Smith contends, "We need to hear not just from politicians and legislators, not just from artists, but from all kinds of people."
 
On the NewsHour's Art Beat blog, find an extended interview clip in which Judy asks Smith how she initially learned the skills that would become the foundation of her Tony-winning theater career. And watch a clip of Smith performing as Dr. Kiersta Kurtz-Burke, a New Orleans physician who was working at Charity Hosptial during Hurricane Katrina, in "Let Me Down Easy."
 
 "Let Me Down Easy" plays in Washington through mid-February. Its national tour will continue to four more cities: Philadelphia; Columbus, Ohio; San Francisco; and San Diego.