Anna Deavere Smith among winners of arts academy prizes

NEW YORK (AP) — Playwright Adrienne Kennedy, actor-playwright-educator Anna Deavere Smith and author-essayist Phillip Lopate are among this year’s recipients of career achievement prizes from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Lopate, 78, is the winner of the one honor that includes a cash prize, the $100,000 Christopher Lightfoot Walker Award for contributions to American literature. His books include the essay collections “Bachelorhood” and “Against Joie de Vivre” and the novels “Confessions of Summer” and “The Rug Merchant.” The academy announced Tuesday that the 90-year-old Kennedy, known for such plays as “Funnyhouse of a Negro,” won its Gold Model for Drama.