Deborah Salem Smith

Last updated

Deborah Salem Smith is an American poet and playwright. She is the playwright-in-residence at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island and is a Huntington Theatre Playwriting Fellow.

Contents

Biography

Smith was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and grew up in Charlotte. She graduated cum laude from Princeton University with a degree in Art and Archaeology, [1] where she wrote an additional thesis in poetry for the Creative Writing Program. She intended to become a poet or painter. [2] During her undergraduate studies, Smith took a class with renowned South African playwright Athol Fugard, who encouraged her to merge her interests and become a playwright. [3]

After completing her undergraduate studies, Smith ultimately decided to receive her MFA in poetry at the University of Michigan. [4] [5] Her thesis adviser in Michigan echoed the words of Fugard, noting Smith's theatrical use of dialogue and strong visual instincts in her poetry. [6]

She published poems, including "Material Origins of Ethics" and "A Preface: The Diminishment of Infinity" in the Berkley Poetry Review, under the name D. Salem Smith.

In 2002, Smith's long poems evolved into her first play. She was awarded the 2004-2005 Fulbright Emerging American Artist (Playwriting) Fellowship in Dublin, Ireland, where she worked in the Abbey Theatre, [7] and the 2004-2005 Rhode Island School of Design Humanities Travel Award to Belfast. [8]

After returning from Ireland in 2005, Smith was commissioned by Trinity Repertory Company to write her first play, Boots on the Ground. The play premiered in 2006 and was directed by Laura Kepley. That same year, Smith was commissioned by Trinity Rep to write Some Things Are Private. The play premiered in 2008 and was named a "Critics Pick" by The Boston Globe . [9] [10]

Smith's 2012 play, Love Alone, received an Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award and an Honorable Mention by the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award. In addition, Love Alone was an IRNE Award finalist for Best New Play of 2013. [11] [12] Love Alone was also an Indy Week (North Carolina) Best Play of 2014 selection; and a National Lambda Literary Award finalist in Drama, 2016. The play is currently produced in multiple theaters across the country.

Faithful Cheaters, a comedy, premiered at Trinity Repertory Company in April, 2017. [13]

Anna K. (new play-in-progress) had a reading in the 2016 Breaking Ground Festival at the Huntington Theatre. [14]

Since 2007, Smith has been the playwright-in-residence at Trinity Rep. [15] She also teaches the playwriting curriculum for the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Program.

Personal life

Deborah Salem Smith is married to Dr. Christine Montross and together they have two children.

Her brother-in-law Eric Montross is a former NBA basketball player and sports commentator.

Full-length plays

Reviews

Louise Kennedy of The Boston Globe says of Smith's Boots on the Ground:

"Boots on the Ground" is successful precisely because it avoids polemic, on either side. It aims to show us the human cost of war, and it succeeds. Then it wisely lets us reflect on whether the cost is worth it, rather than telling us what to feel. [16]

Kennedy also writes of Some Things Are Private, saying:

"Luminous, intelligent, provocative, and deeply moving," adding that it is also "great fun - never preachy, often humorous, and suffused throughout with a mixture of emotional warmth and intellectual engagement that's only too rare in contemporary culture." [17]

Dr. Pauline W. Chen of The New York Times says of Love Alone:

Few plays or movies capture the emotional and professional aftermath of a medical error...Love Alone [is a] lucid, deeply nuanced and fearless work. [18]

The Providence Journal's Channing Gray writes of Smith and Love Alone:

Smith tells a balanced tale that tells both sides of the issue, and she does so with subtlety and well-crafted dialogue..."Love Alone" is...most ambitious and most cogent...showing real maturity. [19]

Larry O’Brien of Broadway World says of Smith’s Faithful Cheaters:

This is a screwball comedy that would have made George S. Kaufman proud. [20]

David Christner of The Newport Daily News says:

"Faithful Cheaters" is as frantic a farce as any Frenchman ever formulated, but underlying all the good humor and physical comedy is a touching story about love. The structure of Smith’s comedy follows a formula that is centuries old, only deviating from the form when the playwright momentarily puts the hijinks aside and allows the emotional side of her characters to be exposed. It is in these small moments where Smith’s gift for exploring the fragility of the human heart through her words truly shines and makes this production so extraordinary. [21]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paula Vogel</span> American playwright

Paula Vogel is an American playwright. She is known for her provocative explorations of complex social and political issues. Much of her work delves into themes of psychological trauma, abuse, and the complexities of human relationships. She has received the Pulitzer Prize as well as nominations for two Tony Awards. In 2013 she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

Theresa Rebeck is an American playwright, television writer, and novelist. Her work has appeared on the Broadway and Off-Broadway stage, in film, and on television. Among her awards are the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award. In 2012, she received the Athena Film Festival Award for Excellence as a Playwright and Author of Films, Books, and Television. She is a 2009 recipient of the Alex Awards. Her works have influenced American playwrights by bringing a feminist edge in her old works.

Dael Orlandersmith is an American actress, poet and playwright. She is known for her Obie Award-winning Beauty's Daughter and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama, Yellowman.

Amy Freed is an American playwright. Her play Freedomland was a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Ruhl</span> American writer

Sarah Ruhl is an American playwright, poet, professor, and essayist. Among her most popular plays are Eurydice (2003), The Clean House (2004), and In the Next Room (2009). She has been the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career. Two of her plays have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and she received a nomination for Tony Award for Best Play. In 2020, she adapted her play Eurydice into the libretto for Matthew Aucoin's opera of the same name. Eurydice was nominated for Best Opera Recording at the 2023 Grammy Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paines Plough</span> Touring theatre company

Paines Plough is a touring theatre company founded in 1974, currently led by Artistic Directors Charlotte Bennett and Katie Posner.

Nancy Harris is an Irish playwright and screenwriter. She was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sheila Callaghan</span> American dramatist

Sheila Callaghan is a playwright and screenwriter who emerged from the RAT movement of the 1990s. She has been profiled by American Theater Magazine, "The Brooklyn Rail", Theatermania, and The Village Voice. Her work has been published in American Theatre magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lydia R. Diamond</span> American playwright (born 1969)

Lydia R. Diamond is an American playwright and professor. Among her most popular plays are The Bluest Eye (2007), an adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel; Stick Fly (2008); Harriet Jacobs (2011); and Smart People (2016). Her plays have received national attention and acclaim, receiving the Lorraine Hansberry Award for Best Writing, an LA Weekly Theater Award, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and the 2020 Horton Foote Playwriting Award from the Dramatists Guild of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie Baker</span> American playwright and teacher

Annie Baker is an American playwright and teacher who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her play The Flick. Among her works are the Shirley, Vermont plays, which take place in the fictional town of Shirley: Circle Mirror Transformation, Nocturama, Body Awareness, and The Aliens. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2017.

John Kuntz is an American actor, playwright, director, and solo performer. Kuntz is the author of 14 full-length plays, a founding company member at Actors' Shakespeare Project, has taught at Emerson College, Suffolk University, and Concord Academy, and is currently an associate professor of theater at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. He was an inaugural playwriting fellow with the Huntington Theatre Company and a fellow at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in 2007. Kuntz is the recipient of six Elliot Norton Awards, two Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Awards, and New York International Fringe Festival Award, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tanya Barfield</span> American playwright

Tanya Barfield is an American playwright whose works have been presented both nationally and internationally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katori Hall</span> American playwright (born 1981)

Katori Hall is an American playwright, screenwriter, producer, actress, and director from Memphis, Tennessee. Hall's best known works include the hit television series P-Valley, the Tony-nominated Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, and plays such as Hurt Village, Our Lady of Kibeho, Children of Killers, The Mountaintop, and The Hot Wing King, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Lila Rose Kaplan is a 21st-century American playwright. She currently lives in Somerville, MA, where she was a Huntington Playwriting Fellow with the Huntington Theatre Company (2012-2014) as well as a Next Voices Playwriting Fellow with New Repertory Theatre (2015-2016).

Jennifer Haley is an American playwright. She grew up in San Antonio, Texas and studied acting at the University of Texas at Austin for her undergraduate degree. Haley also received a MFA in playwriting at Brown University in 2005, where she worked under American playwright and professor, Paula Vogel. Now living in Los Angeles, Haley is pursuing a career in theatre, film and television.

Meg Miroshnik is an American playwright.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karen Zacarias</span> Mexican-American playwright

Karen Zacarías is an American playwright. She is known for her play Mariela in the Desert. It was the winner of the National Latino Playwriting Award and a finalist for other prizes. Mariela in the Desert was debuted at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Zacarías is the founder of the Young Playwrights' Theater located in Washington, D.C.

Lauren Yee is an American playwright.

Clare Barron is a playwright and actor from Wenatchee, Washington. She won the 2015 Obie Award for Playwriting for You Got Older. She was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Dance Nation.

Charise Castro Smith is an American playwright, actress, screenwriter, producer, and director. She is best known for co-writing and co-directing the Disney animated film Encanto (2021).

References

  1. ↑ "Education and Professional Experience". www.deborahsalemsmith.com. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  2. ↑ Goodman, Lawrence. "Deborah Salem Smith: A playwright who probes gray areas". www.paw.princeton.edu. Princeton University. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  3. ↑ Goodman, Lawrence. "Deborah Salem Smith: A playwright who probes gray areas". www.paw.princeton.edu. Princeton University. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  4. ↑ "Education and Professional Experience". www.deborahsalemsmith.com. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  5. ↑ Goodman, Lawrence. "Deborah Salem Smith: A playwright who probes gray areas". www.paw.princeton.edu. Princeton University. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  6. ↑ Goodman, Lawrence. "Deborah Salem Smith: A playwright who probes gray areas". www.paw.princeton.edu. Princeton University. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  7. ↑ "Awards & Honors". www.deborahsalemsmith.com. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  8. ↑ "Productions, Workshops, & Readings". www.deborahsalemsmith.com. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  9. ↑ "Productions, Workshops, & Readings". www.deborahsalemsmith.com. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  10. ↑ "Awards & Honors". www.deborahsalemsmith.com. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  11. ↑ "Productions, Workshops, & Readings". www.deborahsalemsmith.com. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  12. ↑ "Awards & Honors". www.deborahsalemsmith.com. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  13. ↑ Gray, Channing. "Theater review: 'Faithful Cheaters' at Trinity Rep is committed to entertainment". providencejournal.com. Retrieved 2018-02-10.
  14. ↑ BWW News Desk. "The Huntington Continues Commitment to Play Development with the 2016 BREAKING GROUND FESTIVAL". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2018-02-10.
  15. ↑ "Awards & Honors". www.deborahsalemsmith.com. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  16. ↑ Kennedy, Louise. "Powerful 'Boots' is a shared story about war's cost". www.boston.com. The Boston Globe. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
  17. ↑ Kennedy, Louise (22 February 2008). "A question of vision and values: 'Private' focuses on artist's provocative photos of her children". Boston.com. The Boston Globe. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
  18. ↑ Chen, Pauline (May 24, 2012). "On Stage, the Repercussions of a Medical Mistake". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  19. ↑ Gray, Channing. "Malpractice at the heart of Trinity's "Love Alone": The two-act drama shows the effects on everyone involved, including the doctor". The Providence Journal. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  20. ↑ O'Brien, Larry. "BWW Review: FAITHFUL CHEATERS at Trinity Repertory Company". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2017-07-17.
  21. ↑ Mercury, Dave Christner |. "New comedy has fragile human heart". NewportRI.com l News and information for Newport, Rhode Island. Archived from the original on 2017-06-20. Retrieved 2017-07-17.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.