SMART PEOPLE

Lydia Diamond
2016

STICK FLY
Lydia Diamond
2008

LYDIA DIAMOND

I have the double whammy of black and female,

although I think Im always black first.
Lydia Diamond

Born 1969 in Detroit, MI

Education

B.A. from Northwestern University

in Theatre and Performance Studies

Accolades / History

African American Arts Alliance of Chicago Black

Excellence Award
American Alliance for Theatre and Education
Award
Lorraine Hansberry Award for Best Writing
Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award
Residency at Steppenwolf
W.E.B. Dubois Institute Fellowship
Huntington Playwright Fellowship
Radcliffe Fellowship
Member of TCG Board

SMART PEOPLE

Quick-witted,
wildly
intelligent,
and
as
entertaining as it is unsettling,Smart Peopleis
Lydia Diamond's most ambitious play to date.
Peter Dubois

Commissioned by McCarter Theatre

Center
Supported by National Endowment
for the Arts Art Works Grant
Diamond worked on Smart People as
a Radcliffe Fellow
Took 8 years to write, as Obamas
election changed the course of the play
Premiered 2014, Huntington Theatre,
Boston
Ran at Second Stage Theatre, New York

SMART PEOPLE

Quick-witted,
wildly
intelligent,
and
as
entertaining as it is unsettling,Smart Peopleis
Lydia Diamond's most ambitious play to date.
Peter Dubois

What
inspired Smart
People was
that there
Commissioned
by McCarter
Theatre
were
a lot of plays by white men coming
Center
out that
were kind
musing Endowment
about race.
Supported
byofNational
Race isfor
what
do: Art
raceWorks
and gender,
the IArts
Grant
sexuality
and class.
[Smart
People]
is a play
Diamond
worked
on Smart
People
as
about a
love
and family
and relationships
Radcliffe
Fellow
because it can't be a play if it's not about
those
things
first.
decided
I'm going to
Took
8 years
to Iwrite,
as Obamas
write
aboutchanged
[race] boldly
and without
election
the course
of the fear
play
yet just as funny and quirky and with
characters
just
as flawed
as they
always
Premiered
2014,
Huntington
Theatre,
are.
I was like, "You know, I'm going to write
Boston
a
very clearly
ax
play
Ran that
at Second
Stage doesn't
Theatre,have
Newan
York
to grind.
-Lydia Diamond

SMART PEOPLE

Quick-witted,
wildly
intelligent,
and
as
entertaining as it is unsettling,Smart Peopleis
Lydia Diamond's most ambitious play to date.
Peter Dubois

So
for a year, or inby
this
case two
years, it
Commissioned
McCarter
Theatre
was
just reading everything and allowing
Center
myself
to understand
it the way
a layperson
Supported
by National
Endowment
would,for
because
a lot
the science
the Arts
Artof
Works
Grant is
written
in a completely
hard
to as
Diamond
worked dense,
on Smart
People
penetrate
way. I think
as soon as you get
a Radcliffe
Fellow
too stuck in the specifics of science,
especially
for something
that
youre
Took 8 years
to write, as
Obamas
extrapolating
on andthe
kind
of making
a
election changed
course
of theup
play
new hybrid, you could get so lost in the
facts
that it would
into this Theatre,
weird,
Premiered
2014,turn
Huntington
didactic,
Bostonboring thing.
-Lydia
Diamond
Ran at Second Stage Theatre,
New
York

SMART PEOPLE

STICK FLY

Acutely observant, laugh-out-loud funny, and

complicated as only real human stories can be.
The Boston Globe

Premiered by Congo Square Theatre

Company, Chicago, March 2006
Opened in Broadway at the Cort Theatre
December 2011
Accolades

Winner! 2010 LA Drama Critics Circle Awards

Winner! 2010 LA Garland and 2009 LA Weekly
Theatre Awards for Playwriting
Winner! Boston IRNE Award
Winner! 2006 Black Theatre Alliance Award,
Best Play
Finalist! 2008 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize
Nominee! 2012 Outer Critics Circle Award,
Outstanding New Broadway Play

QUESTIONS
Final Coincidence

Second Stage Set

Smart People Close Reading

Smart People Visual

Analysis

Entomological

Production
Concerns

Stick Fly Title Analysis

Smart People in 2016

One-Sided
Conversation
Compare/Contrast

Final
Coincidence

What is the effect of placing

Obamas inauguration and Brians
EEG side by side on stage at the
end of Smart People?

Second Stage
Set
This was the set of Smart People
in the recent Second Stage
production. How does this setting
inform or influence our experience
of the play? How do the opening
projections fit into this scene, into
Q

One-Sided
Conversation
Compare and contrast the onesided conversations in Smart
People to the offstage men in
Eclipsed and Ruined.
Q

Entomological
You know how we look at
flies? I mean, you know you
cant just follow a fly around
wit ha video cam, its too
fast So, we glue a fly to a
stick And we film his wing
adjustments as we project
objects coming at him. Isnt
that crazy? Then we just
throw it away and study the
digital film images.

How is the idea of

the stick fly
reflected in the
characters and
plot of the play?
Q

Production
Concerns
Smart People premiered in 2014.
How is it affected by being
produced in context of the 2016
elections? How would you market
this play to a regional audience?
Q

Teaching Race
Ginny, Brian, Taylor, and Kimber
have complex attitudes towards
teaching society about race. How
does placing these attitudes sideby-side teach us, the audience,
about race?