Anna Deavere Smith to be Honored at Signature Theatre's 30th Anniversary Gala in May

Signature Theatre has announced that the company's 30th Anniversary Annual Gala: Three Decades Together, One Future for Us All will take place virtually on Thursday, May 6, 2021. The 30th Anniversary Gala will celebrate the company's beloved community of resident playwrights, artists and audiences. Signature Theatre will also present the inaugural Signature Outstanding Artist Award to Resident Playwright Anna Deavere Smith. The gala program is directed by Lila Neugebauer and will feature Katori Hall, Samuel D. Hunter, Dominique Morisseau and Lynn Nottage, with performances by Dave Malloy and cast members from Signature's production of Lauren Yee's Cambodian Rock Band: Abraham Kim, Jane Lui, Joe Ngo, and Courtney Reed. Gala co-chairs for this year are Bloomberg Philanthropies, Edward Skyler, Citi, and Nina B. Matis & Alan Gosule.

The virtual gala is free to attend and will be streamed at 7PM on the Signature Theatre YouTube page. For more information and to RSVP please visit www.signaturetheatre.org/gala.

Anna Deavere Smith is an actress and playwright. She is credited with creating a new form of theater. To write plays covering topics as diverse as the school-to-prison pipeline (Notes from the Field), civic uprisings (Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 and Fires in the Mirror), and health care (Let Me Down Easy), Smith interviews hundreds of individuals. She performs her plays as one person shows, in which she represents disparate world views. They are also performed by multiple actors. Smith is recognizable to television and film audiences from performances in "Black-ish", "The West Wing", "Nurse Jackie", "For the People", "Philadelphia", and "The American President". Her many honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, the Dean's Medal from the Stanford University School of Medicine, the George Polk Career Award in Journalism, the National Humanities Medal bestowed by President Obama, and numerous honorary degrees. She is a professor at NYU.

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