A new play by Lydia Diamond, "Smart People," dives headfirst into complex issues of race, class and gender just before President Obama’s historic win. IE 11 is not supported.

In Smart People, Dennis Quaid plays Lawrence Wetherhold, a literature professor at Carnegie-Mellon University who is hopelessly unconcerned with the ...

Lawrence Wetherhold, the thoroughly unendearing hero of Smart People (Miramax), is an anti-intellectual’s fantasy of what a college prof might be. Played with shaggy gusto by Dennis Quaid ...

A tidy geometry of gender and race takes shape right away in the Arena Stage production of Lydia R. Diamond’s bright, acerbic comedy “Smart People.” Two men: one black, one white. Two women ...

Lydia R. Diamond’s “Smart People,” a hard-edged satire of life among the academic multiculturati, was first performed off Broadway in 2016 in a production directed by Kenny Leon. I praised ...