Molly Smith, Artistic Director

Molly Smith has been a passionate leader in new play development for the past 30 years while at Arena Stage as well as at Perseverance Theatre in Alaska, the theater she founded and led for 19 years. During ten seasons as Arena’s Artistic Director, she has focused the repertory on American voices, making Arena the largest theater in North America focusing on American writers. She founded Arena’s downstairs series, which has read and workshopped some sixty plays, half of which have gone on to full productions. Ms. Smith has commissioned or championed numerous world premieres including Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive and Mineola Twins; Tim Acito’s musical adaptation of Gloria Naylor’s novel The Women of Brewster Place; Moisés Kaufman’s 33 Variations; Charles Randolph-Wright’s Blue; Zora Neale Hurston’s lost American play Polk County; and Passion Play, a cycle by Sarah Ruhl. Her directorial work has been seen at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Trinity Repertory Company, and in Canada at the Shaw Festival, Tarragon Theatre and Centaur Theatre; it includes classics such as South Pacific, Mack and Mabel, Anna Christie and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Smith has served as Literary Advisor to the Sundance Theatre Lab and formed the Arena Stage Writers Council, comprised of leading American playwrights. An avid traveler, Ms. Smith brings artists of international renown to work at Arena Stage and serves as a member of the Board of the Theatre Communications Group as well as the Center for International Theatre Development. She directed two feature films, Raven’s Blood and Making Contact, and received Honorary Doctorates from both Towson and American Universities.