Dael Orlandersmith

Dael Orlandersmith (born Donna Dael Theresa Orlander Smith Brown October 29 1959) is an American actress, poet and playwright.

Quotes

• [All of the characters] are composites. You’re looking at what could be. There’s theatrical truth to it, which is: maybe this isn’t verbatim, but it’s within the realm of possibility…
  • On her writing process for Until the Flood in “Dael Orlandersmith on ‘Until the Flood’” in The Interval (2018 Feb 1)

• In theatre, people do that all the time. There’s always going to be somebody who wants their own sense of justice, especially with this. They have their own sense of justice that explains if someone else’s is true. Speak for me, speak to me. I want you to tell me who did what. We don’t know who did what within those individual moments. Who was right? Who was wrong? Whatever that means. It’s not, for lack of a better term, that black and white.
  • On people projecting certain ideas onto theater in “Dael Orlandersmith on ‘Until the Flood’” in The Interval (2018 Feb 1)

• The outsiders. I’m interested in the people that don’t necessarily fit and the thing that gives you permission to be uncomfortable. I like dark work because you’re forced to learn about certain things…
  • On the themes that she favors in “Dael Orlandersmith on ‘Until the Flood’” in The Interval (2018 Feb 1)

• If you are looking for a sense of justice, that’s not what I’m doing. I’m telling many truths. I don’t have to represent.
  • On incorporating various perspectives in her works in “Dael Orlandersmith Is a Poet of Life’s Complexity” in American Theatre (2015 Dec 11)