1 Title page design 2 Note from Your Dramaturg 9/7/2020 Hello all! This is the casebook for our production of Let Me Down Easy. Within it is some research on the characters, the playwright, and other topics surrounding the play. There are 6 main sections of the casebook including a glossary and bibliography. Throughout the rehearsal process, I will be adding additional information to this casebook if it is needed. Anyone can request research, elaboration on a subject, or anything of interest to be added to the casebook. I also am always thinking of more fun things to add and expand on. I am more than glad to alter what is already written and add whatever is needed. Let’s create a magnificent show! Your Dramaturg, Ambree Feaster 3 Table of Contents The Playwright…………………………………………………………………………….4 The Play………………………………………………………………………………………6 Genre and Style……………………………………………………………………………………6 Anna Deavere Smith and Let Me Down Easy…………………………………….……7 Themes……………………………………………………………………………………………….7 Why This Play Now?........................................................................................8 Notable Productions……………………………………………………………………………..8 The World of Let Me Down Easy…………………………………………………….9 Fluidity………………………………………………………………………………………………..9 Early 2000s in American……………………………………………………………………….9 The Characters……………………………………………………………………..……..11 James H. Cone………………………………………………………………………………..……11 Elisabeth Streb…………………………………………………………………………………..…12 Lance Armstrong……………………………………………………………………………..……14 Sally Jenkins…………………………………………………………………………..…………….16 Eve Ensler……………………………..……………………………………………………………..17 Brent Williams…………………………………………….……………………………………….19 Michael Bentt………………………………………..…………………………..…………………20 Hazel Merritt………………………………………….…………………………………………….21 Lauren Hutton………………………………………….…………………………………………..22 Ruth Katz…………………………………………………..…………………………………………23 Kiersta Kurtz-Burke……………………………………..………………………..……………..23 Phil Pizzo…………………………………………………………………………….……………….24 Susan Youens……………………………………………………………………………………….25 Eduardo Bruera…………………………………………………………………………………….26 Ann Richards……………………………………………….……………………………………….27 Lorraine Coleman…………………………………………………………………………………28 Joel Siegel…………………………………………………………………………………………….28 Peter Gomes…………………………………………………………………….………………..29 Trudy Howell………………………………………………………………….………………….31 Matthieu Ricard…………………………………………………….……………………………31 The Glossary……………………………………………….……………………………...33 The Bibliography…………………………………………………….……...……………..35 4 The Playwright- Anna Deavere Smith Birthday: September 8, 1950 Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland Parents: • Anna Young Smith- an elementary school teacher • Deavere Young Smith- a coffee merchant Occupation: Actress, Playwright, Educator, Author Education: • B.A in Linguistics from Beaver College AKA Arcadia University (1971) • M.F.A in Acting from American Conservatory Theatre (1977) Notable Works: • Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and Other Identities (1992) • Twilight: Los Angeles (1992) • Talk to Me: Travels in Media and Politics (2000) • Letters to a Young Artist • Notes from the Field (2016) Awards: • National Humanities Medal • MacArthur Award • Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize • George Polk Award in Journalism • Ridenhour Courage Prize • Dean’s Medal from Stanford University School of Medicine • Obie for Fires in the Mirror 5 Bio: Anna Deavere Smith was raised in segregated Baltimore by her middle class, black family. She was said to be a shy child. From a young age, she was fascinated by language and personal stories from her family and friends. After receiving her M.F.A, she began a teaching career. She taught theatre at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh from 1978 to 1979, taught at the University of Southern California from 1986 to 1989, and taught at Stanford University from 1990 to 2000. She was also a professor at Tisch School of arts and is a founding director of the NYU Institute in the Arts and Civil Dialogue. Anna Deavere Smith has had a productive career in acting. She has made multiple TV appearances in shows such as Black-ish, Nurse Jackie, For the People, and West Wing. She’s been in films including RENT, Philadelphia, and The American President. She is credited with creating a new form of theatre that falls under Documentary Theatre (see pg.) in which she combines journalistic aspects of interviewing with applying her interpretation of their words to her art. She has written and performed 15 one woman shows that she orchestrated from over 100 interviews she has conducted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ7xm0KVZYA A video from The Atlantic of Anna Deavere Smith Quotes: • “My work begins with questions” • “I see myself as not a typical theater person, but a person who uses the theater as a place to meet people and explore ideas.” • “Each person has a literature inside them.” • “I don't talk a lot when I interview. My job is to get out of the way.” • “Racism has been for everyone like a horrible, tragic car crash, and we've all been heavily sedated from it. If we don't come into consciousness of this tragedy, there's going to be a violent awakening we don't want. The question is, can we wake up?” • “You know, all kinds of people inspire me.” • “I think that art is supposed to be ahead of the times.” 6 The Play-Let Me Down Easy Genre & Style Documentary Theatre: A form of theatre that draws from documents, journals, reports, interviews, and other sources involving real events and people that strives to re-enact, re-create, and interpret these sources through artistic expression. This style can also be found in radio, television, and films. This style of theatre theatre can be done by an individual or multiple artists. Documentary theatre was inspired by social reform, working class struggles, poverty, classiam, and racial oppression. It has origins in Russia and later spread to America. The 3 major eras of documentary theatre are the 1930s, the 1960s- 1970s, and the 1980s-1990s. The 1930s era centered a lot around the work of the Federal Theatre Project. They borrowed the concept of “living newspapers” performances from Russia. Content for performances came from everyday life, the experiences of the working class and immigrants. The forms of performance were modernist, montage, expressionism, collage, and minimalism. Performances often involved the audience Once the Federal Theatre Project ended, documentary theatre halted until the 1960s. The 1960s era of Documentary theatre was happening during the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war, and global economic upheaval. Narratives were centered around oppression, democracy, and equality. On the contrary to the previous era, Artold Brecht’s distancing of the audience was often used in plays. The 1980s-90s era moved away from typically structured and plot connected plays that took from specific content and events towards more loose happenings and the autobiographical point of view of “real” individuals as source material. This style was solidified by Anna Deavere Smith in the 1990s when she conducted interviews and encompassed the body and personality of the people she interviewed on stage. This style of theatre is commonly known as verbatim theatre. (Alternate names: Docudrama, ethno-drama, tribunal theatre, theatre of witness, verbatim theatre, theatre of fact) Plays in this style: • The Investigation by Peter Weiss • In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer • I Am My Own Wife • London Road • The Guys Verbatim Theatre: Although this term is another way to refer to documentary theatre, it is more so considered a subcategory of documentary theatre. The term verbatim itself means word for word. Verbatim theatre is known for constructing specific words from people who were interviewed. The playwright normally focuses these interviews around a specific topic or theme. Anna Deavere Smith is dubbed the pioneer of verbatim theatre because of her one woman plays in which she conducted numerous interviews. Plays in this style: • The Laramie Project • Deep Cut • Talking to terrorists • Fires in the Mirror • Twilight Los Angeles 7 Anna Deavere Smith and Let Me Down Easy Anna Deavere Smith interviewed over 100 people and 20 made it into this show. She considers Let Me Down Easy her most universal work. Anna Deavere Smith had a lot of intentions while creating and performing this play. She wanted us to be aware of our lives and how much of a beautiful privilege it is to be alive. Along with this she wants everyone to ask themselves, “what do I want from life?”, “what impact do I have in the lives of others?”. She also wanted this play to show us the human side of healthcare. She wanted the audience to leave questioning if we have a caring of a nation as we think. Themes Healthcare: This theme is arguably the most prominent in the show. Through this theme we get various perspectives on the healthcare system, the healthcare debate, healthcare workers, treatment, etc. All of this comes together and shows how everyone at some point is going to deal with the system in one way or another and that is a thread that weaves many of these characters together. Death/Dying: Throughout the show, we see a lot of commentary, accounts, and perspectives of death. We have how death is seen in cultures differing from America. We see how death is handled by different people. We see more abstract examples of dying. We see more positive ways of thinking about death and more of a grim outlook on death. There is also a lot on the natural fear of death humans harbor. Life/Living: Because we get so much spotlight on death in the show, its opposite,