A Hearty Congratulations to Louise Smith!!

Louise Smith ’77, Associate Professor of Theatre, was honored with a special citation at the 2003 Obie Awards for her work in the Talking Band company’s January production of Ellen Maddow’s ’71 Painted Snake in a Painted Chair at LaMama E.T.C. in New York.

Sponsored by The Village Voice, the prestigious Obies are for distinguished work in the off- and off-off-Broadway theater. Smith won a 1990 Bessie Award (for New York dance and performance), but said, “I never in a million years thought I would get one of these.” Others collecting Obies included actress Fiona Shaw for Medea, actor Edward Norton for Burn This, Lynn Redgrave for Talking Heads, Rosemary Harris for All Over and playwright Mac Wellman for lifetime achievement.

While teaching at Antioch, Louise is continually acting and reaching out beyond Antioch’s campus. She is currently working with Carlyle Brown on a solo show based on Brown’s own travels in West Africa, The Fula From America. The show tells the story of one African-American’s search for an African identity. Set in 1981, the African-American traveler sets off alone on an adventurous journey that takes him through Senegal, Mali, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. From deep in the bush to the corridors of the African elite he discovers friendship and generosity, poverty, wondrous beauty, and civil war. Praised by Variety as “…a real tour-de-force recalling the best work by such monologists as Lily Tomlin and Spalding Gray,” the show has received much positive attention. Louise is directing the production.

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