Anna Deavere Smith: I have a mentee named Samora Pinderhughes [who’s a musician and multidisciplinary artist], and he does an exercise with my N.Y.U. class where he brings in jazz musicians. A couple of years ago, he came with a tap dancer — it was Michela, and she was fantastic.
Although she’s not traditionally in theater, what she does do — what she’s striving to do — is bring different forms together. She’s not a typical tap dancer; she’s not a typical jazz musician. She’s a real entertainer. I don’t know if people think of me as an entertainer, although I’m using skills that entertainers have. As my friend [the playwright-director] George C. Wolfe once said to me, “Baby, they come to my theater to laugh and yours to cry.”
Mentorship’s not a candy store; it’s a relationship. And Michela just carries with her a spirit that allows her to be approachable: I call it walking hospitality. She’s a dynamic, dynamic woman. Michela’s not a formal mentee [of mine] — I think of her as a sister. Because it goes both ways, right? I learn from her, too.
Michela Marino Lerman: I first became aware of Anna when I was in middle school — our teacher wanted us to develop monologues and showed us her plays — and so it’s kind of beyond my comprehension that she’s become an important figure in my life.
What I’ve learned from Anna is this sense of authenticity: listening to everyone’s side of the story — objectively hearing it. It’s akin to what I do as a tap dancer, jazz musician and improvisational artist: Allow things to unfold organically, then sculpt and mold them. But to have somebody outside my wheelhouse see that I can be more than just a tap dancer — that I can reach people beyond what I think I’m capable of — has given me license. What’s profound about her and her work is that she upholds traditions in hope, in compassion, in honesty and truth and in recognizing those qualities in others and amplifying them. She’s not messing around — she really cares.
Interviews have been edited and condensed.
Smith: Hair: Dickey. Makeup: Rosemary Redlin. Marino Lerman: Grooming: Remy Moore
