Going Deep with Anna Deavere Smith on Love and Justice

Kelly Corrigan Wonders

Kelly Corrigan Show

Society & Culture

4.8 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2024

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In our final episode of the Shook By A Book series, Kelly talks with actor, writer and celebrated creative mind, Anna Deavere Smith about two texts that have stayed with her over the years: Letter From A Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dibs in Search of Self: The Renowned, Deeply Moving Story of an Emotionally Lost Child Who Found His Way Back by Virginia M. Axline. …. Anna breaks down why these two very different texts have been so affecting for her and how they inform her work. Special thanks to The Teagle Foundation for their generous support of this series. Check out Anna performing Letter From a Birmingham Jail at the historic Stanford Memorial Church in 2015. You can also watch Kelly's Tell Me More interview with Anna at pbs.org/kelly. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Kelly Corrigan Wonders. I'm Kelly Corrigan and today I'm
0:10.1	wondering about life-changing reading experiences. My thought partner is a friend, the great
0:15.9	actor and writer and professional observer, Anna Devir Smith. You might remember her from West Wing. she was recently in Blackish and inventing Anna. She has done some
0:26.3	groundbreaking theater that totally floored me. I would recommend to you notes from the field on
0:32.0	HBO. It's dynamic and
0:34.3	sophisticated and important and she's here to talk with me about two books which
0:39.2	have had a profound effect on her. Letter from a Birmingham jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and
0:45.6	dibs in search of self by Virginia Axline.
0:50.2	So join me for Kelly Corrigan Wonders and my conversation with Anna Devir Smith. Welcome. Welcome back to Kelly Corrigan Wonders. I'm Kelly Corrigan. Today's episode is the fifth and final episode in our Shook by a book series where I'm talking with great American thinkers about a
1:24.1	transformational text something they were assigned to read which had a life
1:28.7	changing impact. My conversation partner today is actress and writer Anna Devir Smith.
1:34.3	I interviewed Anna back in 2022 for my PBS show Tell Me More and we've had a good time
1:39.9	together since she is a joy to know and a fascinating creative who has
1:44.8	developed a singular way of inhabiting characters that involves
1:49.2	interviewing real people and presenting their words verbatim. She literally becomes the people she has interviewed on stage
1:57.0	adopting their posture,
1:58.0	their verbal ticks, their accents,
2:01.0	she gets it all just right.
2:02.0	And through this is able to highlight social issues in a way I've never seen done before.
2:08.0	Today, Anne is here to talk about not one but two books that have stuck with her in important ways.
2:14.8	Martin Luther King Jr's Letter from a Birmingham jail and Dibs in search of self by Virginia
2:21.0	Axline.
	...

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