BROADCASTS.com

Anna Deavere Smith might be best known for her acting roles on NBC\u2019s The West Wing and Showtime\u2019s Nurse Jackie. But she\u2019s also one of the most prolific playwrights of \u201cdocumentary-style theater,\u201d where she uses verbatim interviews as source material in hopes of pushing her audience toward \u201can adjustment in the way that they think.\u201d 

Her latest work is a one-woman show called Notes From The Field, which was recently released on HBO. It examines how minority students living in poverty often end up incarcerated. To make it, Smith interviewed 250 people affected by the school-to-prison pipeline, including inmates, educators, and witnesses to injustice. 

Smith told Nerdette co-host Tricia Bobeda about how she made Notes From The Field and what she hopes it will achieve.