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Notes from the Field
"Smith’s powerful style of living journalism uses the collective, cathartic nature of the theater to move us from despair toward hope.” —The Village Voice Anna Deavere Smith’s extraordinary form of documentary theater shines a light on injustices by portraying the real-life people who have experienced them. "One of her most ambitious and powerful works on how matters of race continue to divide and enslave the nation” (Variety). Smith renders a host of figures who have lived and fought the system that pushes students of color out of the classroom and into prisons. (As Smith has put “Rich kids get mischief, poor kids get pathologized and incarcerated.”) Using people’s own words, culled from interviews and speeches, Smith depicts Rev. Jamal Harrison Bryant, who eulogized Freddie Gray; Niya Kenny, a high school student who confronted a violent police deputy; activist Bree Newsome, who took the Confederate flag down from the South Carolina State House grounds; and many others. Their voices bear powerful witness to a great iniquity of our time—and call us to action with their accounts of resistance and hope.
152 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 21, 2019
29 people are currently reading
1514 people want to read
About the author
Anna Deavere Smith
23 books160 followersAnna Deavere Smith (born September 18, 1950) is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is currently the artist in residence at the Center for American Progress. Smith is widely known for her roles as National Security Advisor Nancy McNally in The West Wing and as Hospital Administrator Gloria Akalitus in the Showtime series Nurse Jackie. She is a recipient of The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (2013), one of the richest prizes in the American arts with a remuneration of $300,000.
In 2009 Smith published her first book, Talk to Me: Travels in Media and Politics. In 2006 she released another, Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts-For Actors, Performers, Writers, and Artists of Every Kind.
As a dramatist Smith was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for Fires in the Mirror which won her a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show. She was nominated for two Tony Awards in 1994 for Twilight: one for Best Actress and another for Best Play. The play won her a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance and a Theatre World Award.
Smith was one of the 1996 recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as the "genius grant." She also won a 2006 Fletcher Foundation Fellowship for her contribution to civil rights issues as well as a 2008 Matrix Award from the New York Women in Communications, Inc. In 2009 she won a Fellow Award in Theater Arts from United States Artists.
She has received honorary degrees from Spelman College, Arcadia University, Bates College, Smith College, Skidmore College, Macalester College, Occidental College, Pratt Institute, Holy Cross College,[disambiguation needed] Haverford College, Wesleyan University, School of Visual Arts, Northwestern University, Colgate University, California State University Sacramento, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wheelock College, Williams College, and the Cooper Union.
The United Solo Theatre Festival board awarded her with uAward for outstanding solo performer during the inaugural edition in November 2010.
In 2013, she received the 2012 National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama.
In 2009 Smith published her first book, Talk to Me: Travels in Media and Politics. In 2006 she released another, Letters to a Young Artist: Straight-up Advice on Making a Life in the Arts-For Actors, Performers, Writers, and Artists of Every Kind.
As a dramatist Smith was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for Fires in the Mirror which won her a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show. She was nominated for two Tony Awards in 1994 for Twilight: one for Best Actress and another for Best Play. The play won her a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance and a Theatre World Award.
Smith was one of the 1996 recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as the "genius grant." She also won a 2006 Fletcher Foundation Fellowship for her contribution to civil rights issues as well as a 2008 Matrix Award from the New York Women in Communications, Inc. In 2009 she won a Fellow Award in Theater Arts from United States Artists.
She has received honorary degrees from Spelman College, Arcadia University, Bates College, Smith College, Skidmore College, Macalester College, Occidental College, Pratt Institute, Holy Cross College,[disambiguation needed] Haverford College, Wesleyan University, School of Visual Arts, Northwestern University, Colgate University, California State University Sacramento, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wheelock College, Williams College, and the Cooper Union.
The United Solo Theatre Festival board awarded her with uAward for outstanding solo performer during the inaugural edition in November 2010.
In 2013, she received the 2012 National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
May 17, 2019
Notes from the Field by Anna Deavere Smith is a short read, but I promise it packs a punch. This one-woman play written by Smith dives into the school-to-prison pipeline, justice system and issues surrounding class and race.
The play consists of vignettes, acted out exclusively by Smith and based, verbatim, on interviews with 17 people who’d somehow been touched by the school-to-prison pipeline. They include Allen Bullock, a young Baltimore protester dressed in a hoodie and kicks; Michael Tubbs, a popular Stockton, California, councilman who was recently elected the city’s mayor; Abby Abinanti, the chief judge of the Yurok tribe; Linda Wayman, the principal of Strawberry Mansion High School in Philadelphia; and Congressman John Lewis.
Each story pretty much broke me, so get your tissues ready. Thank you, netgalley & Anchor Books/Knopf Doubleday, for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
The play consists of vignettes, acted out exclusively by Smith and based, verbatim, on interviews with 17 people who’d somehow been touched by the school-to-prison pipeline. They include Allen Bullock, a young Baltimore protester dressed in a hoodie and kicks; Michael Tubbs, a popular Stockton, California, councilman who was recently elected the city’s mayor; Abby Abinanti, the chief judge of the Yurok tribe; Linda Wayman, the principal of Strawberry Mansion High School in Philadelphia; and Congressman John Lewis.
Each story pretty much broke me, so get your tissues ready. Thank you, netgalley & Anchor Books/Knopf Doubleday, for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
July 5, 2019
I was lucky enough to see Ms. Smith performed this when she was workshopping it in Philadelphia. If you have not seen the HBO film or a live performance, I struggle recommend that you do.
Ms. Smith’s Notes from the Field is part of her series of plays that she bases on interviews or archived footage. In this case, the focus is on the school to prison pipeline. Her characters (and I use that term extremely loosely, every character is real person. You have not lived until you see Ms. Smith act James Baldwin) include students, activists, community leaders, and teachers. The collections between each person’s monologue is clear but not articulated.
In part the focus is on violent behavior in students and the results of the largely institutional violent reaction to black and brown bodies. Hence the inclusion of a young girl who was arrested for simply filming a deputy throw down a classmate. The focus isn’t on the sexuality of young teenage girls, an issue that gets media play. It is focused on violence and how it effects all youth. Both girls and boys. But it is violence and treatment that is allowed by society which makes the play all the more damning.
Notes from the Field show use what a total lack of compassion does to a society.
Ms. Smith’s Notes from the Field is part of her series of plays that she bases on interviews or archived footage. In this case, the focus is on the school to prison pipeline. Her characters (and I use that term extremely loosely, every character is real person. You have not lived until you see Ms. Smith act James Baldwin) include students, activists, community leaders, and teachers. The collections between each person’s monologue is clear but not articulated.
In part the focus is on violent behavior in students and the results of the largely institutional violent reaction to black and brown bodies. Hence the inclusion of a young girl who was arrested for simply filming a deputy throw down a classmate. The focus isn’t on the sexuality of young teenage girls, an issue that gets media play. It is focused on violence and how it effects all youth. Both girls and boys. But it is violence and treatment that is allowed by society which makes the play all the more damning.
Notes from the Field show use what a total lack of compassion does to a society.
April 16, 2019
Notes from the Field is essentially the script from the stage play of the same name. Anna Deavere Smith toured, interviewing numerous people about their roles in life in the USA. They include the woman who climbed the pole to tear down the South Carolina rebel flag, the girl involved in the roughing up and arrest of a classmate who refused to leave her seat, the man who taped the Freddie Gray murder, the Congressman who marched in Selma, as well as people who try to help people. Her focus is the school-to-prison pipeline the country is becoming famous for.
This book is a complement to the HBO special the play has also been made into. Anna Deavere Smith plays all the roles, speaking the storytellers’ words and assuming their personas. It expands the litany of persecution, racism, neglect and injustice in the United States today. The book is immensely moving.
It is far more moving than the play, which four of us saw at Second Stage in New York in 2016. We were underwhelmed, for all the wrong reasons, it turns out. Smith was less than convincing and authentic. She is after all, a middle aged white woman. She played black teenagers, protestors, a Congressman, a convict, whites, blacks, and a Salvadoran, and all with truly minor additions to costume. We found ourselves trying too hard to appreciate her effort. She adopted accents and cadences, mimicked their postures and attitudes, and reproduced the hand and head movements of her storytellers. We wanted to appreciate how she and the bass player who was the only other person onstage, worked with each other as the stories unfolded.
We watched all those details in an attempt to assign kudos if not genius to the effort, because it reflected a huge amount of work by Smith. But it wasn’t all that impressive. Worse, we thereby missed the impact of what the storytellers had to say through her, which was the point of it all. We left unsatisfied.
So I’ve never thought about it again, but was curious to read what I might have missed when this book was offered.
The book notes all those postures and attitudes, and recreates the cadences and linguistic styles in print, so that readers can be right there, and appreciate the storytellers for who they are, what they have to say and how they say it. To me, it is more valuable than seeing it live. Unlike the play, the book is valuable, informative and unforgettable.
David Wineberg
This book is a complement to the HBO special the play has also been made into. Anna Deavere Smith plays all the roles, speaking the storytellers’ words and assuming their personas. It expands the litany of persecution, racism, neglect and injustice in the United States today. The book is immensely moving.
It is far more moving than the play, which four of us saw at Second Stage in New York in 2016. We were underwhelmed, for all the wrong reasons, it turns out. Smith was less than convincing and authentic. She is after all, a middle aged white woman. She played black teenagers, protestors, a Congressman, a convict, whites, blacks, and a Salvadoran, and all with truly minor additions to costume. We found ourselves trying too hard to appreciate her effort. She adopted accents and cadences, mimicked their postures and attitudes, and reproduced the hand and head movements of her storytellers. We wanted to appreciate how she and the bass player who was the only other person onstage, worked with each other as the stories unfolded.
We watched all those details in an attempt to assign kudos if not genius to the effort, because it reflected a huge amount of work by Smith. But it wasn’t all that impressive. Worse, we thereby missed the impact of what the storytellers had to say through her, which was the point of it all. We left unsatisfied.
So I’ve never thought about it again, but was curious to read what I might have missed when this book was offered.
The book notes all those postures and attitudes, and recreates the cadences and linguistic styles in print, so that readers can be right there, and appreciate the storytellers for who they are, what they have to say and how they say it. To me, it is more valuable than seeing it live. Unlike the play, the book is valuable, informative and unforgettable.
David Wineberg
February 5, 2022
Absolute chore to read. I decided to first scrutinize this catastrophic balderdash of a "play" after anatomizing positive reviews via my computational apparatus. I am thoroughly disillusioned in the lack of structure this monstrosity encompasses. There is insubstantial content to the play, although various interviews of zero worth are featured regularly. I am positive that I have suffered damage to my occipital lobes after reading Smith's tragedy. I implore you to refrain from perusing this publication if you fancy your economic capital.
June 20, 2020
Your backstage pass to a stellar production.
Smith, one of contemporary America's most interesting playwrights, traveled the country talking to lots of folks about the school-to-prison pipeline, police brutaility, and a number of other difficult contemporary cultural issues that predominately affect Black people. She transformed these interviews into the one-woman show, "Notes From the Field," which was then made into an HBO movie. This book is the script from which both productions came.
Good scripts have detailed production notes and suggestions for other directors who want to perform the work. Smith goes above and beyond in this regard, going into minute detail about the choices she made, why she made them, and what alternate suggestions for when her choices aren't available or feasible. Without seeing either of the source texts, I was personally a little lost at times; however, this made me even more determined to see one of the productions (probably the HBO film, given the state of live theater right now). Plays look and sound very different on the stage than they do on the page, so any script that makes you curious about the production -- or gives you ideas for your own -- is a successful one.
The show is a series of monologues, accompanied by live music, with slides and video as supporting elements. Smith as the interviewer is mostly absent, creating monologues that sound natural and genuine. Based on the way the characters talk, you get the sense that Smith was really listening.
The material itself will be a game-changer for folks who have somehow managed to avoid being informed about the many damages structural racism inflicts on Black Americans. Political theater has always been a thing, but we need it now, more than ever, and Smith delivers.
Drama's always a sticky wicket in a library collection: it's important to have some, or you're not doing your job as a librarian properly. However, it tends to not circ well, unless you live in a community with a heavy theater scene, or schools that support drama programs. Given Smith's reputation as an author, however, and the timeliness of the subject matter, I would reccomend this for all but the smallest collections.
Smith, one of contemporary America's most interesting playwrights, traveled the country talking to lots of folks about the school-to-prison pipeline, police brutaility, and a number of other difficult contemporary cultural issues that predominately affect Black people. She transformed these interviews into the one-woman show, "Notes From the Field," which was then made into an HBO movie. This book is the script from which both productions came.
Good scripts have detailed production notes and suggestions for other directors who want to perform the work. Smith goes above and beyond in this regard, going into minute detail about the choices she made, why she made them, and what alternate suggestions for when her choices aren't available or feasible. Without seeing either of the source texts, I was personally a little lost at times; however, this made me even more determined to see one of the productions (probably the HBO film, given the state of live theater right now). Plays look and sound very different on the stage than they do on the page, so any script that makes you curious about the production -- or gives you ideas for your own -- is a successful one.
The show is a series of monologues, accompanied by live music, with slides and video as supporting elements. Smith as the interviewer is mostly absent, creating monologues that sound natural and genuine. Based on the way the characters talk, you get the sense that Smith was really listening.
The material itself will be a game-changer for folks who have somehow managed to avoid being informed about the many damages structural racism inflicts on Black Americans. Political theater has always been a thing, but we need it now, more than ever, and Smith delivers.
Drama's always a sticky wicket in a library collection: it's important to have some, or you're not doing your job as a librarian properly. However, it tends to not circ well, unless you live in a community with a heavy theater scene, or schools that support drama programs. Given Smith's reputation as an author, however, and the timeliness of the subject matter, I would reccomend this for all but the smallest collections.
April 21, 2024
i cried too hard at this
February 5, 2022
Does this book cater to some sort of shapeshifting/roleplay/power dynamic sexual fetish? Why does this author feel to need to project this in a published book dealing with such serious flaws in American society?
Anyway, it took me over 15 years to read this utterly horrific play. Waste of my money. This disastrous mess of a play puts this entire genre to shame. An irrelevant modern author labels inmates using profanities as "art", as well as a dude playing notes on a double bass is considered "enhancement to the plot of the play". This play is downright horrid and should not be read or viewed at all costs. "Notes" are not present within this play, nor are "fields" making this title completely invalid and blasphemous.
0 stars, 0 viewer engagement, 0 useful information, 0 exciting plot
Anyway, it took me over 15 years to read this utterly horrific play. Waste of my money. This disastrous mess of a play puts this entire genre to shame. An irrelevant modern author labels inmates using profanities as "art", as well as a dude playing notes on a double bass is considered "enhancement to the plot of the play". This play is downright horrid and should not be read or viewed at all costs. "Notes" are not present within this play, nor are "fields" making this title completely invalid and blasphemous.
0 stars, 0 viewer engagement, 0 useful information, 0 exciting plot
August 11, 2021
World Premiere run: Berkeley Repertory Theatre (2015) in a different form
Length: Full Length Play
The published version of this play is a combination of the original play, later revisions and scenes from the 2018 movie based on it. The play is somewhere between a play and a non-fiction journalistic research - the words used are the ones of real people but they are told by a single actor. I have half a mind checking the movie - I cannot imagine this actually working properly but who knows.
The play is part of a bigger project by the author - her series of plays "On the Road: A Search for American Character" had been started in the 1980s. This is the first play by her that I had ever read - and while I am not sure I want to see it, reading it actually works.
The main topic of the play is the school-to-prison pipeline in the US educational system - a topic that cannot be discussed if you do not incorporate the topics of race, mass incarceration and everything around them. Reading it in mid-2021 adds another layer to the whole thing - it made me wonder what else would the author add to this play if it was created today.
As it is, the play covers people from all walks of life - from a high school student who get arrested (for nothing) to a Native American man who finally got released from jail, from activists to judges, from a European teacher to social workers and James Baldwin, closing with the late John Lewis. It is a series of interviews without questions; real speeches and interviews (some published, some not), collected together into a narrative that looks disjointed but somehow manages to become a complete piece at the end.
The format is unconventional and I am still not sure it was the most effective one - I would have preferred a complete book, containing the same images and words but also containing some analysis. It it somehow works - it makes you stop and think and consider - and maybe as with most social commentary plays, that's what makes it powerful.
I wish that this play will read dated and irrelevant in less than a decade. Unfortunately I suspect that even decades from now, it will sound fresh and topical. And that is a shame.
Highly recommended.
Length: Full Length Play
The published version of this play is a combination of the original play, later revisions and scenes from the 2018 movie based on it. The play is somewhere between a play and a non-fiction journalistic research - the words used are the ones of real people but they are told by a single actor. I have half a mind checking the movie - I cannot imagine this actually working properly but who knows.
The play is part of a bigger project by the author - her series of plays "On the Road: A Search for American Character" had been started in the 1980s. This is the first play by her that I had ever read - and while I am not sure I want to see it, reading it actually works.
The main topic of the play is the school-to-prison pipeline in the US educational system - a topic that cannot be discussed if you do not incorporate the topics of race, mass incarceration and everything around them. Reading it in mid-2021 adds another layer to the whole thing - it made me wonder what else would the author add to this play if it was created today.
As it is, the play covers people from all walks of life - from a high school student who get arrested (for nothing) to a Native American man who finally got released from jail, from activists to judges, from a European teacher to social workers and James Baldwin, closing with the late John Lewis. It is a series of interviews without questions; real speeches and interviews (some published, some not), collected together into a narrative that looks disjointed but somehow manages to become a complete piece at the end.
The format is unconventional and I am still not sure it was the most effective one - I would have preferred a complete book, containing the same images and words but also containing some analysis. It it somehow works - it makes you stop and think and consider - and maybe as with most social commentary plays, that's what makes it powerful.
I wish that this play will read dated and irrelevant in less than a decade. Unfortunately I suspect that even decades from now, it will sound fresh and topical. And that is a shame.
Highly recommended.
June 1, 2019
Notes From the Field
Book Review | 📚📚📚📚 1/2 4.5/5
Anna Deavere Smith (writer) | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
From the artistic mind of an incredible observer, documentarian, and storyteller of the human condition comes the new book, Notes From the Field, by Anna Deavere Smith.
Why I was interested in this book:
I’ve known of Anna Deavere Smith and her work for many years. Her plays, her films, her essays. She’s a maverick storyteller.
My assessment:
Smith has done it again. This time, her keen observations of life, best described in the book blurb, “she renders a host of figures who have lived and fought the system that pushes students of color out of the classroom and into prisons.” Each “chapter” is a mini-story of a real person interviewed by Smith. In her film, of the same name, she portrays each of these people, herself. Story by story, we learn further about the intricacies of her subjects, in their own words.
Stories of the human condition:
This book captures the epitome of stories of the human condition. It is what we have come to expect from Anna Deavere Smith and it is what she has brought forward. She has truly put herself into the shoes of those she interviewed, personifying them in their own words, and her own emotions.
Note:
I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley.com in exchange for an honest review. Had I not been interested in this book and have high respect for the author, I would not have chosen to read it.
TAGS:
#NotesFromTheField #review-book #book review #Play #KnopfDoubledayPublishingGroup #AnnaDeavereSmith #TuggleGrassBlues #Tuggle Grass Reviews #TuggleGrassReviews
Book Review | 📚📚📚📚 1/2 4.5/5
Anna Deavere Smith (writer) | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
From the artistic mind of an incredible observer, documentarian, and storyteller of the human condition comes the new book, Notes From the Field, by Anna Deavere Smith.
Why I was interested in this book:
I’ve known of Anna Deavere Smith and her work for many years. Her plays, her films, her essays. She’s a maverick storyteller.
My assessment:
Smith has done it again. This time, her keen observations of life, best described in the book blurb, “she renders a host of figures who have lived and fought the system that pushes students of color out of the classroom and into prisons.” Each “chapter” is a mini-story of a real person interviewed by Smith. In her film, of the same name, she portrays each of these people, herself. Story by story, we learn further about the intricacies of her subjects, in their own words.
Stories of the human condition:
This book captures the epitome of stories of the human condition. It is what we have come to expect from Anna Deavere Smith and it is what she has brought forward. She has truly put herself into the shoes of those she interviewed, personifying them in their own words, and her own emotions.
Note:
I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley.com in exchange for an honest review. Had I not been interested in this book and have high respect for the author, I would not have chosen to read it.
TAGS:
#NotesFromTheField #review-book #book review #Play #KnopfDoubledayPublishingGroup #AnnaDeavereSmith #TuggleGrassBlues #Tuggle Grass Reviews #TuggleGrassReviews
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February 12, 2024Notes From the Field by Anna Deveare Smith is a play adapted into a book with a compilation of interviews of significant African American people, all performed by the author, Smith. The interviews together tell a story and relay the perspectives of different people affected by the racism and discrimination in the United States. While this book was very interesting and well-written, it was very deep and upsetting to read, because of the experiences explained by the interviewees. An aspect that was a little difficult was that the book was quite disjointed to read. Each character was only written about for about two or three pages. For this reason, it was difficult to learn about and feel connected to the characters. However, I was inspired to learn more about the characters in real life. I would recommend this book for many people, because it tells stories that need to be told, but I would only recommend it to older and more mature readers, as it contains mature subject matter.
-Review by Shanna
-Review by Shanna
October 7, 2019
I appreciate the author's documentation of any issues related to our young people in this country, particularly the school to prison pipeline. However as a foster parent, I work to prevent another pipeline and that is the foster child to prison pipeline. Both these stories start with the environment that these children are growing up in, and I can tell you even when they are removed from that environment they seek it out because that is what is they know. You can call it an "adjustment disorder" or whatever label psychologists want to put on it but the kids boomerang back to poverty and violence even when they have a choice. I can't say having work in a school from a poverty stricken area that these kids are all angels. They are not. Some of them are headed to prison no matter what interventions are in place, and some of them are just mean, disrespectful kids. The ones that get hurt are the good kids that are in the line of fire. I will watch the HBO special, but I didn't find the book all that enlightening.
February 3, 2022
Out of Deavere Smith's plays, "Notes from the Field" is the least focused. Granted, the text shows how the school-t0-prison pipeline is inseparable from issues of inequality, racism, and mass incarceration in America. But in refusing to explore a single issue in depth, the text instead offers a collection of impressionistic and emotion truths, rather than analysis. Also, for a text from 2019, I found too many instances of blaming Black kids for their own predicament that were uncritically presented, as seen in the multiple interviewees discussing how Black male youths need to "pull up their pants." I found the selections from people who work in education and those with a national scope (such as the late John Lewis, Bree Newsome, and Bryan Stevenson) to be the most elucidating and moving. But those looking for insights into the plight of public education in America and its effect on the criminal justice system will find little use in this piece.
November 11, 2021
I'm a huge fan of Smith's one-woman shows and her HBO special that this book was drawn from is absolutely incredible. Smith is able to bring to life people's unique perspectives that are crucial to better understanding issues of race, school-to-prison pipelines, police brutality, etc.
Although the book is not as riveting as seeing Smith perform the material, it is still powerful. A super quick read, it allows the reader to ponder important aspects of our current culture. I'd probably recommend someone check out the film as well to get the full picture of Smith's work, but this book is a nice companion piece.
*Free copy provided by Netgalley and publisher in exchange for an honest review*
Although the book is not as riveting as seeing Smith perform the material, it is still powerful. A super quick read, it allows the reader to ponder important aspects of our current culture. I'd probably recommend someone check out the film as well to get the full picture of Smith's work, but this book is a nice companion piece.
*Free copy provided by Netgalley and publisher in exchange for an honest review*
May 8, 2019
I did not realize that this is actually the script for a play in which Deavere Smith played all the parts. If you are at all interested in how people of color are experiencing life, this is a valuable and important work that will make you think. You might have read about some of the individuals who tell their stories here but here they tell the story, not someone else. It's sad, it's hopeful, it's occasionally hard to read but all in all, it's an important work. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.
February 10, 2024
So I more watched this one than read it but I wanted to document it here so I can remember how impactful and brilliant it was. This theatre’s performance was spectacular and beautifully illustrated the struggles and critiques of the US education system, incarceration, and police brutality. I was moved by this piece and inspired to more actively speak out and continue learning more about the injustices so many black people in America are facing. I was also reading “Abolition. Feminism. Now.” which gives so much useful context to this play.
July 20, 2022
Okay I’m definitely going to have to reread this at some point, there was a lot to take in. It’s short but more so that every line is so so important rather than feeling rushed. I learned a lot. This book supports my belief that written English and spoken are two different languages and after adjusting to the style, it was almost easier to comprehend. The way people speak lent an ease to the discussion and one less step involved in taking it in when reading
July 29, 2019
This is a transcription of Smith's stage show of the same name about the school-to-prison pipeline, along with introductory comments, notes about Smith's process, and performance notes. It's an excellent way of getting to know Smith and her work, although, given the important role of the musician on stage, I'd have liked to have had more material about the music.
August 7, 2019
Very good book of the play by the same name. Thought provoking and stays with you long after you finish it. Kudos to this talented woman. Job well done. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on this review.
September 6, 2019
This book was brilliant on all levels. The assortment of people who Smith interviewed, the content, the music and most of all, the acting. Smith embodies and becomes her subject. To say I was riveted was an understatement. To hear Smith become Congressman John Lewis, Bryan Stevenson and so many others is just indescribable. Read and listen to this book. It will stay with you for a long time.
September 7, 2019
This is the text from Deveare Smith's one woman play wherein she embodies a series of people who she interviewed and essentially recreates what they said. The theme for this particular series of interviews is the school to prison pipleline. It's an amazing performance, and it was interesting to read the play in written form to see the notes on how it was created and should be performed.
October 23, 2020
I am glad I read this. I saw this show on Broadway in 2016 (I think). Reading the stories that are collected, which the author performed, was moving, humbling, infuriating and beautiful. I’m grateful for her collecting these stories in this way and place, just like I was grateful for her stirring performance of the same material.
May 3, 2019
I can’t even begin to tell you how much I loved this. What an amazing project and concept turned into a powerhouse of emotion and change.
I cried more than once while reading this and that’s something that a text rarely can make me do.
It’s a critical read.
I cried more than once while reading this and that’s something that a text rarely can make me do.
It’s a critical read.
May 22, 2019
I received a copy from NetGalley for review purposes.
This was an interesting yet short read. I never think about the direct link of school to prison, so this was eye opening for me. I didn’t realize that this book is the script for the one woman show.
I will be rereading this.
This was an interesting yet short read. I never think about the direct link of school to prison, so this was eye opening for me. I didn’t realize that this book is the script for the one woman show.
I will be rereading this.
October 2, 2019
A book that was actually a one person theatre production. Notes of how the performance was on stage. The reality of the interviews and the real words and speech of the the interviewee, was difficult to read and yet to the point of the demographics of those telling their story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 27, 2020
Anna is, hands down, one of the greatest theatre artists living today. Her productions bring such a sense of raw honesty, and the way she performs it all (audiobook is highly recommended) is so captivating.
August 17, 2021
Stories from all kinds of people involved in the school to prison pipeline -- teachers, kids who went to prison, friends of these kids, police, activists, bystanders, scholars. Each story is short and packed with quotes I'll keep with me going forward.
March 6, 2022
This was a really intense read at times, very provoking emotionally. There were several points were I had to spot and look up more details because it bothered me to not know what happened to some of the people the interviewees were talking about.
August 10, 2025
‘I just think a lot of us were taught that you just have to find a way to - to - to silently live with your brokenness, with this injury, with that memory. And I don’t think that’s the way forward. I’m look for ways - to not be silent.’
September 12, 2025
Revolted. That's the best word I can use to describe my reaction to this malarkey. If you luxuriate in reading about microwaved babies and uncivilized hooligans shamelessly urinating in water coolers, this is the calamity for you.
July 15, 2019
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC. This well written and thought provoking text from Ms. Smith’s one woman show is a worthy read.
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