Michael Townsend Smith (born October 5, 1935) is an American

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

theatre director A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors a ...

impresario An impresario (from Italian ''impresa'', 'an enterprise or undertaking') is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, Play (theatre), plays, or operas, performing a role in stage arts that is similar to that of a film producer, film or ...

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...

, and lighting designer.

Life and career

Smith was born in

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more t ...

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

, and received his

primary education Primary education is the first stage of Education, formal education, coming after preschool/kindergarten and before secondary education. Primary education takes place in ''primary schools'', ''elementary schools'', or first schools and middle s ...

in Kansas City. He then went to the

Hotchkiss School The Hotchkiss School is a private college-preparatory day and boarding school in Lakeville, Connecticut. It educates approximately 600 students in grades 9–12, plus postgraduates. Founded in 1891, it was one of the first English-style boardi ...

and to

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

. He was a

theatre critic Theatre criticism is a genre of arts criticism, and the act of writing or speaking about the performing arts such as a play or opera. Theatre criticism is distinct from drama criticism, as the latter is a division of literary criticism whereas the ...

for ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...

'' during the 1960s and early 1970s, and was active in the development of Off-Off-Broadway theatre in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. He also worked as a director, playwright, and lighting designer during this time. Smith directed early works by

Sam Shepard Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned half a century. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, ...

Ronald Tavel Ronald Tavel (May 17, 1936 – March 23, 2009) was an American gay screenwriter, director, novelist, poet and actor, best known for his work with Andy Warhol and The Factory and the Theatre of the Ridiculous. Tavel was the founder, with th ...

María Irene Fornés María Irene Fornés (May 14, 1930 – October 30, 2018) was a Cuban-American playwright, theater director, and teacher who worked in off-Broadway and experimental theater venues in the last four decades of the twentieth century. Her plays range w ...

, Emanuel Peluso,

Jean-Claude van Itallie Jean-Claude van Itallie (May 25, 1936 – September 9, 2021) was a Belgian-born American playwright, performer, and theatre workshop teacher. He is best known for his 1966 anti-Vietnam War play '' America Hurrah;'' ''The Serpent'', an ensemble p ...

, Soren Agenoux, H. M. Koutoukas, and William M. Hoffman, and others. He also directed some of his own plays, and works by

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

Edward Albee Edward Franklin Albee III ( ; March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an American playwright known for works such as ''The Zoo Story'' (1958), ''The Sandbox (play), The Sandbox'' (1959), ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' (1962), ''A Delicat ...

Christopher Fry Christopher Fry (18 December 1907 – 30 June 2005) was an English poet and playwright. He is best known for his verse dramas, especially '' The Lady's Not for Burning'', which made him a major force in theatre in the 1940s and 1950s. Biograp ...

, and

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and ...

. During the 1960s, Smith interviewed

Wolfgang Zuckermann Wolfgang Joachim Zuckermann (11 October 1922 – 30 October 2018) was a German-born American harpsichord maker and writer. He was known for inventing a highly popular kit for constructing new instruments and wrote an influential book, ''The Mode ...

, noted manufacturer and scholar of

harpsichord A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one ...

s, for ''The Village Voice''. They became friends and collaborated on projects in the

performing arts The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which involve the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. P ...

. These projects included the Sundance Festival of Chamber Arts, a performing arts festival in rural Pennsylvania, and an unsuccessful attempt to revive the

Caffe Cino Caffe Cino was an Off-Off-Broadway theater founded in 1958 by Joe Cino. The West Village coffeehouse, located at 31 Cornelia Street, was initially conceived as a venue for poetry, folk music, and visual art exhibitions. The plays produced at th ...

, an early off-off-Broadway theater located near Zuckermann's workshop in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...

. In the 1980s, Smith himself began to make harpsichords and

fortepiano A fortepiano is an early piano. In principle, the word "fortepiano" can designate any piano dating from the invention of the instrument by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1700 up to the early 19th century. Most typically, however, it is used to ref ...

s. In the 1990s, Smith was the editor of
Santa Barbara Magazine
' and founded Genesis West, a

theatre company Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a Stage (theatre), stage. The performe ...

in Santa Barbara. They presented Smith's own plays and plays by Shepard, Fornes, and George F. Walker. He also worked as the arts editor of the ''

Santa Barbara Independent The ''Santa Barbara Independent'' is a news, arts, and alternative newspaper published every Thursday in Santa Barbara, California, United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a ...

'' and the music and dance critic for the ''

Santa Barbara News-Press The ''Santa Barbara News-Press'' was a broadsheet newspaper based in Santa Barbara, California. It was founded in 1868 as the ''Post'' and merged with the rival ''News'' to form the ''News-Press'' in 1932. On July 21, 2023, it filed for bankrupt ...

''. In 2003, he moved to

Silverton, Oregon Silverton is a city in Marion County, Oregon, United States. The city is situated along the 45th parallel north, 45th parallel about northeast of Salem, Oregon, Salem, in the eastern margins of the broad alluvial plain of the Willamette Valley. ...

, where he is affiliated with th
Brush Creek Playhouse

Selected works and credits

Smith's plays include ''Captain Jack's Revenge'', ''Country Music'', ''Cowgirl Ecstasy'', ''Heavy Pockets'', and ''Half Life''. A number of his early plays were produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, an off-off-Broadway theatre in the East Village of Manhattan. These included ''The Next Thing'' (1966), directed by

Jacques Levy Jacques Levy (July 29, 1935 – September 30, 2004) was an American songwriter, theatre director and clinical psychologist. Early life and education Levy was born in New York City in 1935 and graduated from the City College of New York in 19 ...

and presented by

The Open Theater The Open Theater was an experimental theatre group in New York City, active from 1963 to 1973. Foundation The Open Theater was founded in New York City by a group of former students of acting teacher Nola Chilton, together with director Joseph Chai ...

at La MaMa; ''Captain Jack's Revenge'' (1970), which Smith dedicated to

Joe Cino Joseph Cino (November 16, 1931 – April 2, 1967), was an Italian-American theatre producer. The Off-Off-Broadway theatre movement is generally credited to have begun at Cino's Caffe Cino in the West Village, West Village of Manhattan. Caffe Cin ...

; and ''Prussian Suite'', which featured music by John Smead and was in aid of H.M. Koutoukas. He also worked on a number of other productions at La MaMa during the 1960s and 1970s. He directed Emanuel Peluso's ''Hurricane of the Eye'' and contributed slides to Robert Schwartz's ''Nova'', both in 1969. He then did lighting for Tom Murrin's ''Cock-Strong'' and ''Son of Cock-Strong'', both directed by

John Vaccaro Theatre of the Ridiculous is a theatrical genre that began in New York City in the 1960s.Bottoms, Stephen J. Chapter 11: "The Play-House of the Ridiculous: Beyond Absurdity". ''Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway M ...

in 1970. Also in 1970 he did lighting for

Jackie Curtis Jackie Curtis (born John Curtis Holder Jr.; February 19, 1947 – May 15, 1985) was an American underground actor, singer, and playwright best known as a Warhol superstars, Warhol superstar. Primarily a stage actor in New York City, Curtis per ...

' ''Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit'', which was performed by the Playhouse of the Ridiculous. Smith wrote the

libretto A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to th ...

for John Herbert McDowell's

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

''A Dog's Love'', and played harpsichord in the 1971 production. ''A Dog's Love'' was produced alongside Smith's play ''Tony'', performed by Lucy Silvay. In 1973, he contributed to John Patrick Dodd's ''City of Light.'' In 1991, he did the lighting design for a production of

's ''Ancient Boys'' directed by Gregory Keller. ''More, More, More, I Want More'' was a three-minute

play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...

Smith wrote with

Remy Charlip Abraham Remy Charlip (January 10, 1929 – August 14, 2012) was an American artist, writer, choreographer, theatre director, theatrical designer, and teacher. He wrote or illustrated more than 40 children's books. Life and career Charlip w ...

and

Johnny Dodd Johnny Dodd (aka John P. Dodd) (June 25, 1941 – July 15, 1991) was an off-off-Broadway lighting designer for theater, dance and music concerts in the downtown art scene in Lower Manhattan during the latter half of the 20th century. He des ...

. They wrote the play for Joyce Aaron to perform at a 1965 benefit for La MaMa to upgrade its

electrical wiring Electrical wiring is an electrical installation of Electrical cable, cabling and associated devices such as switches, distribution boards, sockets, and light fittings in a structure. Wiring is subject to safety standards for design and in ...

and devices. The performance, called ''BbAaNnGg'' and organized by playwright

Robert Patrick Robert Hammond Patrick (born November 5, 1958) is an American actor. Known for portraying villains and authority figures, Patrick is a Saturn Award winner with four other nominations. Patrick dropped out of college when drama class sparked his ...

, consisted of over 25 three-minute skits and was reviewed by Smith in his ''

Theatre Journal The ''Theatre Journal'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the theatre arts, with articles from the October and December issues centering on a predetermined theme. It is an official publication of The Association for Theatre i ...

'' column. Smith also directed Charles Stanley and Ondine in a scene from a Koutoukas play at a production to benefit Koutoukas at La MaMa in 1974.La MaMa Archives Digital Collections
"Special Event: ''For the Benefit of Harry'' (1974)". Accessed July 30, 2018.
/ref>

References

External links

MichaelTownsendSmith.comSmith's blog

Michael Townsend Smith collection of scripts, 1965 - 2002.
Billy Rose Theatre Division,

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, is located at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, in the Lincoln Center complex on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, New York City. Situated between the Metropolitan O ...

.
Smith's page on La MaMa Archives Digital Collections
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Michael Townsend Living people 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 1935 births