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A New Medium for Healthcare Reform: Anna Deavere Smith Uses Austin Theatre to Heal Doctor-Patient Interactions

The strength and resilience of the human spirit and body underlies Anna Deavere Smith's production of LET ME DOWN EASY.

This weekend, she opened the play to sold out crowds and received two curtain calls at every performance. You could tell the play resonated with the audiences as dozens of theatre goers lingered in the lobby to talk about Ms. Smith's performance -- and some unexpected, topical themes that she tackles -- for hours after the play ended.

Many patrons were surprised to see that her documentary-style theatrical performance of diverse characters like Lance Armstrong, Ann Richards, Eve Ensler and Joel Siegel were focused on a debate at the forefront of modern politics: healthcare.

The healthcare debate is center stage in LET ME DOWN EASY. In fact, Ms. Smith initially began work on the show at the behest of Yale University Medical School eight years ago, and several of the 29 vibrant characters she features are directly involved in the medical profession -- as physicians or academics in that field.

But all of the characters' lives are centered around the overarching role that health plays as they traverse life. Take Ann Richards, one of the audience favorites, for example. When Ms. Smith assumes Gov. Richards boisterous persona, Richards is quick to note that she thinks that the healthcare team assigned to her must've been custom picked: "One thing I'm sure of is that there are no Republicans on my team." As Gov. Richards learned a new terse reply, "I can't talk right now, you're using up my chi," she iterates how her struggle with cancer stripped her of her hand-shaking trademark personality around which she built her life in politics. Her declining health turned her life upside down, and, in an odd way, tried to take away her identity before it took her life.

Carrington Marzette, a teenage leukemia patient from Midland, Texas, is one of the most poignant characters from the show. She attended the opening night performance at ZACH Theatre on Saturday, and audience members who met her were impressed by Ms. Smith's ability to convey her exact essence. Ms. Smith told ZACH Theatre she was impressed by the strength of this 16-year-old girl, who tells us matter-of-factly about how she shouldered the responsibility of dealing with doctors and her treatment during her 16th birthday. The audience was spellbound as Carrington bravely and humbly watched the show.

Washington Post sports writer Sally Jenkins is also featured in LET ME DOWN EASY. She makes an interesting point: How does telling athletes that performance enhancing drugs are dangerous really deter them? A Gold Medal Olympic downhill skier, among the most daring of all professional athletes, builds his or her career on taking risks.

All-in-all, each of the vibrant 29 characters featured in this 90-minute production are out-of-the-box luminaries on the healthcare debate, intentionally or not, and the selection, placement and overall composition of LET ME DOWN EASY is the exact kind of genius that insiders in Washington just can't seem to grasp. This is a theatre experience like no other, humorous and touching, political and apolitical, moving, poignant and centered around the joy and resilience of the human spirit and body. Don't miss it.

For tickets, call (512) 476-0541, x1. $15 student rush tickets are available at the box office one hour before all shows, with a student ID.

LET ME DOWN EASY Stuns Austin Audiences: A Defining Performance for Anna Deavere Smith

At the first preview performances of LET ME DOWN EASY, Anna Deavere Smith received an extended, standing ovation and two curtain calls for creating over 23 rapid fire, compelling characters in just 90 minutes. Afterwards, you could hear audience members asking each other “Who was your favorite character?” "Well, who was yours?" And you’ll have your favorites, too ...

The Opening Night performance is tomorrow, Saturday, April 18, and most shows during her short 4 week run are almost sold out. She plays Tuesday through Sunday at 8pm, and there's also a 2:30pm Sunday matinee performance.

Gideon Lester, the Acting Artistic Director and Dramaturg at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass., wrote a compelling editorial history this week about this iconic new play hitting the Austin stage:

Anna Deavere Smith’s plays are like living organisms that evolve over many years. No two productions are exactly alike; she continuously adapts and reshapes the script to reflect the community for whom she is performing, and the discoveries she has made on her journey. The version of LET ME DOWN EASY that you will see at ZACH is part of an ongoing project that has lasted for more than a decade. Anna’s previous performances of the play were substantially different in their emphasis and form, and she will go on developing it in future incarnations. This live-ness is central to Anna’s theatre; part of the thrill of watching her perform is the sense that she is talking directly to you on this particular evening, and that her words may be resonating differently for everyone in the audience.

The long journey of LET ME DOWN EASY began in 1998, when Anna was invited by Yale University Medical School to interview doctors and patients, and to perform the interviews at the Medical School’s lecture series, known as “grand rounds.” That experience was followed by a commission from Stanford Medical School, and research at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where Anna conducted many more interviews, some of which she performed in a series of staged readings at ZACH. While investigating the American healthcare system, Anna came to understand that a central subject of LET ME DOWN EASY would be the resilience and vulnerability of the human body. She embarked on a series of interviews with people who had extreme relations with their bodies: athletes and supermodels, cowboys, dancers, and sex workers, men and women at the peak of physical perfection, and people suffering from debilitating and life-altering diseases. She traveled to Rwanda, Uganda, and South Africa, meeting with victims and perpetrators of genocide, and to New Orleans to talk to doctors, journalists, and citizens dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

While developing LET ME DOWN EASY, Anna has interviewed literally hundreds of people; you’ll meet fewer than ten percent of them this evening. She has developed such an encyclopedic wealth of material that the play can serve many contexts; she has performed sections of it at universities, conferences, and medical schools, as well as theatres.

Whether she is examining a historical event – racial and religious tension in Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 and Fires in the Mirror, the role of the American presidency in House Arrest – or pursuing a less journalistic, more philosophical line of inquiry like that of LET ME DOWN EASY, Anna’s fundamental subject is always human complexity. In her performances she represents many opinions and voices without prioritizing or endorsing any of them. As the theatre critic John Lahr observes, she approaches her subject in LET ME DOWN EASY by “looking at it sideways…through its reflection.” The play is composed as a democratic, inclusive collage; it is not a linear argument with a tidy moral and conclusion, but a celebration of the diversity and breadth of the human experience.

LET ME DOWN EASY received its first formal production last year at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT, where the play focused on the body in extremis. Then in the fall, Anna developed and performed a second version at the theatre where I work, the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA. In a sense this was a companion piece to the first production; a search for grace and kindness in a competitive and sometimes distressing world. If at Long Wharf Anna was investigating the body, at ART her subject was the human spirit. To prepare for it, she conducted many new interviews with artists, professors, philosophers, and clerics from many religions, who provided many definitions and interpretations of grace drawn from their own experience and expertise.

The version of LET ME DOWN EASY that you’ll see at ZACH combines elements from both previous productions with material that Anna has never performed before. She continues to investigate resilience, vulnerability, and grace, of body and spirit – the forces, internal and external that keep us alive and strong, and those that lead to our ultimate demise. Her performance reminds us that all these forces, generative and destructive, are of course profoundly connected; one can only talk about death by thinking about survival and life. As Angie Farmer, the mother of a cancer patient in Houston, told Anna, “Living – that’s what you learn from this experience. You don’t learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

Tickets are available online, or by phone at (512) 476-0541, x1.

Previews Begin for Anna Deavere Smith's New Play LET ME DOWN EASY

Anna Deavere Smith takes stage tonight with a revolution in Austin theatre. LET ME DOWN EASY is about "the power and vulnerability of the human body and the resilience of the human spirit," she said. With most every theater community in the country welcoming her to their stage to develop LET ME DOWN EASY, she chose Austin, and, specifically, ZACH Theatre -- where she first encountered many of the characters she portrays in the production.

But her journey developing this play began 8 years ago at Yale University, where she was a visiting professor. Yale Medical School sought to develop a more sophisticated relationship between its doctors and patients, so Ms. Smith embarked on a long process to explore doctor-patient relationships, with a different concern than physicians. Ultimately, she said, this was about teaching professionals -- already adept at their craft -- to listen.

"We're lucky if we get 15 minutes with doctors," she told ZACH. "Understandably, doctors are often too busy to listen, and patients often don't know how to communicate their illness."

As this momentous project takes stage tonight, after 8 incredible years of development, we thought it would be a good idea to look back to where it started, an article with Ms. Smith from Spring 2001's issue of Yale Medicine, partially re-published here with permission:



A dramatic turn

The doctor-patient relationship takes center stage in performer Anna Deavere Smith’s interpretation of medicine at Yale.

Story by Cathy Shufro
Photographs by Michael Marsland

The playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith stands in the well of Fitkin Amphitheater musing about how patients and doctors manage to communicate under pressure when she slips on a white coat and transforms herself into Yale physician Asghar Rastegar, M.D. “I have looked at every single patient as being a phenomenal new experience,” says Smith, using Rastegar’s words and his Farsi accent. “Excited to walk in that room. Oh yeah, oh yeah, no question about it. Phenomenally excited. Every time, every time, every time.”

Moments later, Smith portrays another doctor, Forrester A. Lee Jr., M.D. ’79, HS ’83, a cardiologist and the school’s assistant dean for multicultural affairs, who calmly and deliberately describes how medical training itself can block vital avenues of communication. “When you’re listening to a patient tell you things that you have to integrate into a whole body of knowledge you have, it’s hard to listen well, because your mind is trying to filter out what they’re saying. And consider alternate diagnoses and so forth. So you’re really not listening; you’re trying to solve the puzzle ... and so it just sort of goes by you that they said something very, very important. You didn’t hear it.”

Sitting down in a chair, Smith becomes a patient, speaking with a trace of a Southern accent. She is Frankie Harris, a woman with HIV who has been treated at Yale.

“I didn’t trust anyone. Doctors wasn’t listening. I had to fight, I had to advocate for myself to get doctors to listen to me. I had to learn to say, ‘What’s the side effects of this?’ Learn to say ‘No, I’m not takin’ that, give it to someone else, let someone else try it first.’ ... I am very conscious and very responsible for other people’s health when it comes to my virus. And I says [to the doctor] ‘Look, before you examine me put some gloves on. I have the virus.’ She went out of the room and she never came back. She never came back.”

The physicians who crowded into Fitkin for medical grand rounds in mid-November had not come to hear a colleague discussing a disease but rather to watch an outsider make a case for the potential richness of doctor-patient communication. Playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith used the words of physicians and patients from the Yale community to create Rounding It Out, a 90-minute examination of how doctors and patients view one another.

(Read the entire article here.)

Setting the Stage: Anna Deavere Smith Begins Work with Director Leonard Foglia at ZACH Theatre

New beginnings abound at ZACH Theatre this week -- for both the Austin theatre scene and its latest star Anna Deavere Smith. Ms. Smith begins preview performances of her masterful new play LET ME DOWN EASY on Wednesday at 8pm on ZACH's Whisenhunt Stage, and begins the play's official run with a champagne reception following Saturday's opening night performance.

Beginning, too, at ZACH is an item that recently caught the attention of The New York Times: the start of a long-anticipated collaboration between famed Broadway director Leonard Foglia and Ms. Smith. The two are debuting their collaborative work on LET ME DOWN EASY exclusively at ZACH Theatre.

And, if you ask us, this is a match made in theatre heaven! LET ME DOWN EASY is on its final stop before heading to New York's Second Stage Theater. But Austin audiences get to witness a level of closeness with Anna Deavere Smith that New York audiences just won't see. Because ZACH's Whisenhunt stage hosts Ms. Smith's play in-the-round, Austin audiences will have a chance to see her in a setting with unparalleled intimacy.

“The city of Austin and ZACH Theatre, specifically, have played an important role in the evolution of this project,” said Ms. Smith. “ZACH Theatre has been part of the play since the beginning; many of the characters – from Gov. Ann Richards to Lance Armstrong – originated in suggestions from people at ZACH.”

The fact that the collaboration between Leonard Foglia and Anna Deavere Smith begins at ZACH Theatre is also a tremendous privilege for Austin audiences. Mr. Foglia took Laurence Fishborne's one-man play THURGOOD to extreme critical acclaim last year on Broadway. And many critics are excited to see what role he will play in shaping Ms. Smith's one-woman show at ZACH.

LET ME DOWN EASY "is a substantial revision of what I did before, focusing far more on health care than the previous productions," Ms. Smith told The New York Times. “Signs seem to suggest we will soon be in a vigorous national debate over health care. The piece not only looks at the human body as both resilient and vulnerable, but also health care as a practical part of that.”

For tickets, call (512) 476-0541, x1. Book early, shows are selling fast! Because of the tremendous demand, ZACH recently added a Tuesday night performance, and the theatre is offering a limited number of $20 tickets on Tuesday nights.

This project has been made possible by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation.

Austin Homeless Community Members Come to See THE GRAPES OF WRATH

It's hard to believe Dr. Judy Knotts, the head of St. Gabriel's Catholic Academy in Austin, lived on the streets. But Dr. Knotts has gone through extraordinary lengths throughout her career to question commonly held worldviews, particularly about poverty and homelessness. It was this uncommon passion that drove her to work with Austin's homeless community as a volunteer and minister at Mobile Loaves and Fishes, a charity benefiting the homeless.

This is where her story begins with the ZACH community. Producing Artistic Director Dave Steakley shares Dr. Knotts' passion for relating with the underserved in our community. Bringing to stage THE GRAPES OF WRATH at ZACH Theatre was his latest contribution toward that mission. In fact, Steakley set up a tremendously successful donation point at all THE GRAPES OF WRATH performances to benefit Mobile Loaves and Fishes.

Dr. Knotts attended the Sunday matinee performance of THE GRAPES OF WRATH last week with two members of the Austin homeless community. She wrote in a letter to ZACH that four members were supposed to join her, but two "got gun shy." The other two had an experience unlike any other, and Dr. Knotts' kind disclosure of their stories moved everyone who works at ZACH to look at homelessness and the spirit of charity and shear joyousness felt in THE GRAPES OF WRATH in a completely different light.

Here's Dr. Knotts' letter to ZACH:

Dear actors/artists!

Thank you for the inspiration. I attended the Sunday matinee with two homeless folks. Two more were to come but they got gun shy.

As Janelle, Jarret, Marc, and Xochitl [castmembers from THE GRAPES OF WRATH] heard, this was their first live performance of any kind. Imagine that! They were nervous to come and I was right with them in the anxiety department. This was like going to another world.

They had so many practical issues. Where to store their stuff? Solved, in my car. Where to sit, what to do with the ticket and what if they lost it, what to do when it got dark in the theatre, and would they miss the Mobile Loaves and Fishes food truck?

To allay their fears, we planned a dinner stop at Sandy's on the way back to the park which made them relax a bit. At first the language was a hurdle for them. They had to listen harder. On the streets people don't use such long sentences or talk about life. They got most of the humor and felt the poverty personally. The music was refreshing, giving them, and the rest of us a minute or two to catch our breath from the intensity of the action.

They learned so much... that theatres have nice bathrooms, that there is an intermission where people smoke whole cigarettes and don't scrounge for butts, that you don't talk while the play is going on, that people get paid to be in plays (I know not enough!), that people go to the theatre to see this kind of thing and be entertained and inspired, and that you show your appreciation by applause. [One homeless attendee] was a real promoter after seeing the play. She told a group of homeless people in the park that she had a "lump in her throat at the end of the play" and urged them to go if invited.

If at all possible, I would love to bring another group the Sunday after Easter... only if there are extra seats. Personally, while not passing out candy bars and playing mother hen, I was awe struck by the play itself and your acting. You were not the people I knew, you were the Joad's full of pain and promise. Thank you all for sharing your gifts and giving the audience hope.

-Judy

Dr. Knotts: ZACH Theatre salutes you! We hope everyone in our community -- homeless or not -- gets to ZACH to witness this extraordinary theatrical event.

It's an amazing experience to share with your family this holiday weekend! ZACH is offering a family 4-pack to see the show, as well as $15 student rush tickets (starting one hour before all shows.) Call the box office to reserve seats at (512) 476-0541, x1, and ask about group discounts for parties of 8 or more.

Link Love: Sara Hickman Posts on THE GRAPES OF WRATH

Update (4-10-09): Read Sara's review of the show.

One of our favorite local musicians, Sara Hickman, is coming to see THE GRAPES OF WRATH tonight. She posted about it earlier today on her blog at http://zenlala.com/.

Being in Austin, we're, of course, huge music fans, and we recently put up a blog post with live recordings of music from the show as well as free MP3 downloads of tracks that inspired THE GRAPES OF WRATH's original live musical score.

Thanks again, Sara, for the link love and enjoy the show!

We'll check back with your blog later to see what you thought of it.

Get Your Golden Ticket: WILLY WONKA JUNIOR Musical Hits ZACH Stage This Weekend!

Oompa, oompa: There are only 4 performances of WILLY WONKA JUNIOR, ZACH Theatre's family friendly youth production based on Roald Dahl's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory playing this and next Saturday!

On Saturdays April 11 and 18 at 12:30 and 3pm, 23 students, ages 8-12, will perform the musical adaptation of the book with all the songs from the classic movie Willy Wonka -- and nine new music numbers written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley especially for the show!

Directed by Jaclyn Loewenstein and adapted for the stage by Leslie Bricusse and Timothy A. McDonald, the show is being presented under an exclusive arrangement with Music Theatre International.

You don't have to buy a zillion Wonka bars to get in or be the luckiest kid in the world like Charlie: These golden tickets are a bargain at only $10 for adults and $8 for children. You can reserve your tour of the chocolate factory with our box office, open noon to 7pm, by calling (512) 476-0541, x1.

And, hot off the press, one oompa loompa just leaked these pictures from inside the factory:





This play runs approximately 75 minutes and is suitable for children ages 4 and up.

Photos by Kimberly Schuh

Red, Hot and Soul 2009: Photos from The Biggest Party of the Year

Thanks to all who joined us Saturday for ZACH Theatre's annual Red, Hot & Soul gala! The who's who of Austin graced the event -- and we got it all on camera. A complete gallery of photos has been posted on ZACH's website. Look for video footage in upcoming blog posts and on ZACH's website, www.zachtheatre.org. Big thanks to Seabrook Jones for the photos and Broadway Costumes, Inc. for the costumes!

Larry Connelly, Red, Hot & Soul Chair, and ZACH's Michael Guerra pause for a picture.


The fashion show models stood en vogue as guests arrived.


(From left to right) Scott Joslove, Councilmember Sheryl Cole, Mayor Pro-Tem Brewster McCracken and his wife Sarah cozy up to the camera.


ZACH's Producing Artistic Director Dave Steakley and singer Trish Murphy are all smiles.


ZACH Theatre's Showstoppers brought down the house with their rendition of the song "The Rhythm of Life" from the musical SWEET CHARITY.


Libby Sikora and Bettie Naylor sit down for dinner.


Austin American Statesman writer Michael Barnes and ZACH's Dave Steakley stop for a photo.


Bill Dickson, Linda Ball and James Armstrong were there.


Stuart Moulton, ahem ... Joan Rivers, interviewed all the guests, including Dave Steakley.


Austin Chronicle fashion editor Stephen Moser strikes a pose with one of his models.


Cliff Redd, Executive Director for the Long Center for the Performing Arts flashes a smile.


ZACH employees, such as Daryl Jones and Amanda Adams, dressed as Broadway characters for the event.


Eric Groten takes his wife Maria for one last dip at the end of the night.

Remember to check out the complete Red, Hot & Soul photo gallery on ZACH's website.

Photos by Seabrook Jones. Costumes provided by Broadway Costumes, Inc.

BREAKING NEWS: Anna Deavere Smith Tickets $10 Off For First Wednesday and Sunday Evening Performances

This won't last long.

ZACH Theatre is offering a special promotional rate for Anna Deavere Smith's first Wednesday and Sunday evening performances of her new play LET ME DOWN EASY. For 8pm performances on Wednesday, April 15 and Sunday, April 19 only, ZACH will take $10 off all tickets purchased by phone (512-476-0541, x1), until the shows sell out.

This is Ms. Smith's last stop before heading to New York, and we anticipate sold out crowds every night during her short run in Austin.

LET ME DOWN EASY is an Austin-borne play that started 8 years ago right here at ZACH. This is a rare opportunity for Austin audiences to experience such a high caliber performance by film and television star Anna Deavere Smith.

Directed by Broadway's Leonard Foglia, and made possible by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, Ms. Smith incorporates a dramatic range of interview subjects during this passionate, utterly jaw-dropping performance. It is a masterful documentary style staging of real-life interviews of influential and important figures -- ranging from Texas Governor Ann Richards to Lance Armstrong, Eve Ensler, Anderson Cooper and survivors of the Rwandan Genocide -- as Ms. Smith channels their compelling perspectives on issues from healthcare and education to international politics and the economy.

Dave Steakley, ZACH's Artistic Director, notes, "Ms. Smith possesses the amazing ability to change from one character to another -- swiftly, completely and stunningly. Through her full transformation, right before our eyes, we find ourselves equipped with the tools to create personal change for ourselves."

This is a performance like nothing you've ever seen before. You are at once watching Ms. Smith deliver the performance of her lifetime and getting a rare opportunity to meet some of the most significant athletes, physicians and players in the global health crisis.

Don't miss it. It all starts Weds., April 15 -- and, remember, ZACH is running a promotion of $10 off tickets for evening (8pm) performances on its first night in preview (4/15) and the first Sunday, April 19. But the offer is on a first-come, first-served basis by phone only, at (512) 476-0541, x1.

Photos by Michael Lutch, courtesy of American Repertory Theatre