Anna Deavere Smith On Her Extraordinary One-Woman Show, HBO's 'Notes From The Field'

Everyone has a voice, but not all voices have platforms to be heard. It has been Anna Deavere Smith’s life work to share these voices and their stories with the rest of the world. The Tony and Pulitzer Prize nominee is bringing her extraordinary one-woman show, Notes From the Field to HBO. Ahead of the film’s premiere, we sat down to chat about this masterful work and why she was so compelled to tell these truths. Smith began exploring the school to prison pipeline – which forces underprivileged minority children out of classrooms and into jail cells -- years ago. However, over the course of her research, the playwright discovered that there was much more to unearth. “It's much more than just that," she explained earnestly. "Very early on I saw that many of the teachers who I met were people that were working very hard with not a lot of resources. Also, there are a lot of things in the bureaucracy of schools because of test scores and data that took up a lot of time and didn't really allow people to focus on children as whole beings. If that hadn't been the case, we wouldn't have lost art and sports in poor schools in the way that we did. This is not just about schools, it’s about poverty in general and I hope that are things in the movie that help make that clear to us. For example, Mayor Michael Tubbs talks about how his girlfriend came to visit him in Stockton and she wanted an apple, and he couldn't find anywhere to buy her one. We know that a lot of poor communities are food deserts.”

Years of research went into Notes From the Field and out of hundreds of interviews, Smith brings approximately eighteen voices to life. Though no one story is better than another, these were the voices that spoke loudest to the professor as she began crafting the original play. “The bulk of the people who are in the movie are also who were in the play,” she explained. “With all of my plays I have a lot more material than I can ever use. I usually do more than 200 interviews, and this is about the eighteenth play I've made this way. I'm gonna come to the rehearsal hall with a play that's way too long, and then I actually use the process of performing and rehearsal to start to hone it down. I’m usually rewriting the play every single night during rehearsal and coming back with something new to show the director in the morning. It's trial and error.”

Smith, who is no stranger to the screen or the stage has worked on massive projects like this one before including her 1992 play Fires in the Mirror and her ’94 stunner, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. With so many years in the business, I wondered if Notes From the Field in particular, and at this present time changed the way she viewed herself as an artist. “That's a really artist sensitive question,” Smith said quietly. “I just hope that every time I go out there, I'm better. I hope that I'm a better interviewer than I was a long time ago. I hope I'm better at picking what should be in the play. I certainly hope that I'm a better performer and that's just accruing experience over time. I just hope it pays off. Every single work that I make is an opportunity of really honing down my own process because I did create a process through which I work. Nobody taught me this process. I had to teach myself how to work, and I had to teach the people who were working with me how to work. I always treasure the chance to make it better.”

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Interview: Filmmaker Allen Hughes reflects on HBO's 'The Defiant Ones'

How do two very different men — one Black, and the other Italian — from opposite ends of the country shift and bend the trajectory of the modern day music business? In his new comprehensive 4-part documentary, master filmmaker Allen Hughes explores the lives and careers of Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine — both veteran music producers, executives and co-founders of Beats by Dre. The Defiant Ones is a gorgeously done work, which weaves in personal interviews and rchival footage, opening with Iovine's entry into the music world during the'70s through our current times.

Ahead of The Defiant Ones premiere, Shadow and Act's Aramide Tinubu sat down to chat with Hughes about the docu-series, why it was such an emotional project for him and why he's now a better director as a result.

Aramide Tinubu: I know you got the idea for the title of the series from the 1958 Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis film from '58. How did you decide you wanted to tell this story, from Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre's perspective and in this manner?

Allen Hughes: Dre and I were gonna do on his life. This was way before Straight Outta Compton. Then, I found out that Jimmy had just talked to HBO about an Interscope documentary, and a light bulb went off. I went, "You know what? I think the better, more original, most dynamic way to tell this story is to tell both their stories and get a glimpse into the partnership. Especially in these days and times, too, with how racially charged things are. A white Italian man from Brooklyn, a Black man from Compton, and they've been together for over 25 years, and they went on to build this massive company called Beats. They still are just as affectionate and fun-loving with one another, and trust each other, as the day they began.

AT: You said that the process started before Straight Outta Compton was even being filmed. So, when did you actually start putting this all together?

AH: Four years ago was the beginning of the process, but the physical process started a little over three years ago. Four total, three physical.

AT: As a director, how did you decide which components of Iovine and Dr. Dre's personal and professional lives that you were going to include?

AH: It's interesting. Once you get to part three, which I think is all so interesting and special and dynamic, and people have their favorites, but part three is the feature-length one, and it's when things get ... They start off fun and then it gets out of control, and it becomes dangerous. You'll see when you get to that part and four, but particularly part three, where you go, "Oh, wow, this is a massive canvas. This is just not about Jimmy and Dre, this is about something that went down in the '90s that was so explosive and so positive, and then it took a left turn at a certain point. How do we get the train back on the tracks?"

AT: Why was HBO the right platform to tell this story?

AH: I have an emotional attachment to HBO, just as a fan. They're just class. I've also heard throughout the years, and I've worked with them on things that didn't end up on the air, but the way they deal with the talent, filmmakers, and artists, they really support you. This process was supposed to take a year, and here were are. They weren't bugging out. They were very supportive of me. I always knew that about them. I'll tell you something that's hilarious. This project was my Trojan Horse into HBO 'cause I've always wanted to work with HBO. So I'm like, "If I can get this done..." The landscape is changing. The one thing that hasn't changed is HBO is always trying to do something different, noisy, but they have a tremendous amount of class to what they do, how they roll something out. You look at this documentary ... I don't know how what city you live in; what city do you live in?

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Urbanworld First Look: Issa Rae’s ‘Insecure’ Is a Love Letter to Black Women

Some weeks ago, I logged into Facebook and became enraptured by a status an old college friend had recently posted. It read, “I trust Black women more than any other group of people.” Initially, I thought nothing of it, since it also rang true for me, but as I scrolled through the comments under the post, it was clear that my brown skin girlfriend had hit a nerve.

In the media and in our own community, Black women are told who we are, how we should be and what we’re going to be. We’re the most educated group of people in this country and yet we’re told our education will greatly diminish our chances at a “fairytale” home life. (Whatever that means.) In one breath we’re told we don’t give Black men a chance, and in another, we are told we baby our Black sons. We’re too loud, or we don’t speak up enough. We’re too weak, or too feminist. Or my personal favorite, our standards are just too high. According to everyone else, we’re just too damn much, and we need to fix a laundry list of things in order to find love, happiness, and security. It’s a constant and exhausting stripping of our humanity. It seems natural then that we gravitate inward towards one another. (Despite what the media tries to say.) As my friend’s Facebook post so bluntly put it, the reason I’m still living (and thriving) in this precarious space we call life as a Black woman, is because of the other Black women I choose to surround myself with.

Issa Rae’s long awaited and highly anticipated HBO series “Insecure”, puts the narrative of Black women back in our hands, while paying homage to our fellow sisters.

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