Anna Deavere Smith
E406241
Anna Deavere Smith is an acclaimed American actress, playwright, and professor known for her pioneering documentary-style solo performances and roles in film and television.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Anna Deavere Smith canonical | 5 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4011381 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Anna Deavere Smith Context triple: [The American President, castMember, Anna Deavere Smith]
-
A.
Lynn Nottage
Lynn Nottage is a Pulitzer Prize–winning American playwright renowned for socially conscious works such as "Ruined" and "Sweat."
-
B.
Paula Vogel
Paula Vogel is a Pulitzer Prize–winning American playwright renowned for works such as "How I Learned to Drive" and "The Baltimore Waltz."
-
C.
June Jordan
June Jordan was an influential African American poet, essayist, and activist whose work powerfully addressed race, gender, social justice, and Black liberation.
-
D.
Ellen Goodman
Ellen Goodman is an American journalist and syndicated columnist renowned for her insightful commentary on social issues, feminism, and contemporary culture.
-
E.
Eric Bogosian
Eric Bogosian is an American actor, playwright, and monologuist known for his intense character work in film, television, and theater, including roles in projects like "Talk Radio" and "Uncut Gems."
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Anna Deavere Smith Target entity description: Anna Deavere Smith is an acclaimed American actress, playwright, and professor known for her pioneering documentary-style solo performances and roles in film and television.
-
A.
Lynn Nottage
Lynn Nottage is a Pulitzer Prize–winning American playwright renowned for socially conscious works such as "Ruined" and "Sweat."
-
B.
Paula Vogel
Paula Vogel is a Pulitzer Prize–winning American playwright renowned for works such as "How I Learned to Drive" and "The Baltimore Waltz."
-
C.
June Jordan
June Jordan was an influential African American poet, essayist, and activist whose work powerfully addressed race, gender, social justice, and Black liberation.
-
D.
Ellen Goodman
Ellen Goodman is an American journalist and syndicated columnist renowned for her insightful commentary on social issues, feminism, and contemporary culture.
-
E.
Eric Bogosian
Eric Bogosian is an American actor, playwright, and monologuist known for his intense character work in film, television, and theater, including roles in projects like "Talk Radio" and "Uncut Gems."
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (51)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
actress
ⓘ
human ⓘ performance artist ⓘ playwright ⓘ professor ⓘ |
| awardReceived |
Drama Desk Award
ⓘ
MacArthur Fellowship ⓘ National Humanities Medal ⓘ PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction ⓘ
surface form:
PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award
|
| countryOfCitizenship | United States of America ⓘ |
| dateOfBirth | 1950-09-18 ⓘ |
| educatedAt |
Arcadia University
ⓘ
Beaver College ⓘ San Francisco State University ⓘ |
| employer |
New York University
ⓘ
NYU Tisch School of the Arts ⓘ
surface form:
New York University Tisch School of the Arts
|
| ethnicGroup |
Black Americans
ⓘ
surface form:
African American
|
| familyName | Smith ⓘ |
| fieldOfWork |
documentary theatre
ⓘ
solo performance ⓘ theatre ⓘ |
| genre |
documentary theatre
ⓘ
drama ⓘ |
| givenName | Anna ⓘ |
| hasGender | female ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
documentary film tradition
ⓘ
verbatim theatre practices ⓘ |
| knownFor |
documentary-style solo performances
ⓘ
multi-character one-woman shows ⓘ verbatim theatre technique ⓘ |
| languageSpoken | English ⓘ |
| name | Anna Deavere Smith self-link ⓘ |
| notableIdea | listening as performance research ⓘ |
| notableRole |
Gloria Akalitus in Nurse Jackie
ⓘ
National Security Advisor Nancy McNally in The West Wing ⓘ roles in Philadelphia ⓘ roles in Rachel Getting Married ⓘ roles in The American President ⓘ |
| notableWork |
Fires in the Mirror
ⓘ
Let Me Down Easy ⓘ Twilight: Los Angeles ⓘ
surface form:
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992
|
| occupation |
actress
ⓘ
author ⓘ educator ⓘ playwright ⓘ professor ⓘ |
| placeOfBirth | Baltimore, Maryland, United States ⓘ |
| positionHeld |
artist-in-residence
ⓘ
professor ⓘ university professor ⓘ |
| residence | New York City ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Anna Deavere Smith Description of subject: Anna Deavere Smith is an acclaimed American actress, playwright, and professor known for her pioneering documentary-style solo performances and roles in film and television.
Referenced by (5)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.