Anna Deavere Smith

Published: June 13, 2020, 4:35 p.m.

She is an admired actor (West Wing), but it’s her playwriting (Fires in the Mirror), drawing on the techniques of documentary film, that first caught my attention. Just starting as a writer, she met a woman at a party. “And she said I’m going to give you three questions you can ask  people. Well, they changed the course of my life. “