The Lanier Library will host a special holiday presentation of Christmas Letters, starring Barbara Bates Smith, on Sunday, November 21 at 2 p.m. The program is free and everyone is welcome.

Readers may remember seeing Smith last spring when she gave a performance of Lees Smiths Fair and Tender Ladies at the library. This time she will perform another play by the same author.

Christmas Letters chronicles the life of Birdie Pickett through her letters to her mother and sister. The play is set in a North Carolina farm beginning in the 1940s and continues through three generations of the family. In her performance she is accompanied by Jeff Sebins on numerous hand-made stringed instruments.

Smith has performed numerous literary adaptations,&bsp; several by the novelist Lee Smith including On Agate Hill and Fair and Tender Ladies. She has also appeared in theatrical productions of Driving Miss Daisy, Doubt, Hamlet, Three Tall Woman and Sister Mary Ignatius. She was in the world premiere of Horton Footes Talking Pictures and was named the 2003 Southeastern Theater Conferences Best Actress for her role in Talking Pictures.

Smith has performed on numerous stages in New York and Provincetown, and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. In addition to her acting career, she is a playwright, musician and educator.

She founded the Taproot Theater Touring Ensemble in Lakeland, Florida, was the playwright in residence at the Harrison Performing Arts High School in Lakeland, FL, and at the University of Texas in Austin, TX. She also performs in sign language for the deaf. She and her husband, Russell, now reside in the mountains near Clyde, NC.

This performance is made possible by a grant from the Kirby Endowment Fund and the Polk County Community Foundation.