theatre without apology
Kenley Smith, playwright
  
NEWS DESK





MAIDENS premiered July 5 at the Darkhorse Theatre in Nashville!
 
WE ARE ALL ANGELS OF GOD ran September 14-23, 2018, as part of SAFETY OFF at the Phoenix Theatre in Minneapolis.

The world premiere of AKUMA-SHIN finished its run on April 28, 2018, at Sacred Fools Theatre Company in Los Angeles. Click here for more info!

RATS LOVE THE TASTE received its first reading on July 1, 2017 at the Darkhorse Chapel in Nashville. Click here for details.

EMPIRES OF ETERNAL VOID, directed by Mark Schnitzler, received its world premiere on November 19-20, 2016, at the University of Memphis.

MAIDENS received a staged reading on December 15, 2015, at the Nashville Rep!  Click here for details.

AKUMA-SHIN is included in "The GPTC Reader / 2015 MainStage," now available here!
KICKING was part of Sideshow Fringe Festival's SCRIPT HAPPENS on July 19, 2015, at Belmont Black Box Theatre in Nashville.
AKUMA-SHIN was chosen out of 578 scripts as one of five MainStage selections at the 2015 Great Plains Theatre Conference!

EMPIRES OF ETERNAL VOID received staged readings March 27-30, 2014, at Spaghetti Theatre in Nashville.  The play is featured in The GPTC Reader: 2013 MainStage.  Get your copy here!
THIS IS TOKYO was part of the October, 2013, Ten Minute Haunted Playhouse at Street Theatre Company.  It later became the basis for my kaiju play-in-progress, AKUMA-SHIN.
DEVIL SEDAN was a smash in 2013 at Playhouse Nashville
EMPIRES OF ETERNAL VOID was chosen out of 550 scripts to be one of five MainStage plays at the 2013 Great Plains Theatre Conference

I'm a playwright.

I’m a playwright who doesn’t want to warm your heart or hook you with some toe-tappin’ feel-good song that you can hum as you skip away from the theatre.  Plenty of guys 'n gals can do that.  I’d rather see you stagger out a little bloody, a tad queasy, a bit worse for wear.  I’m fine if you leave with more questions than answers, because the more you question, the more you engage.  You become part of the process.  I don’t even care if you like the process; I just care that perhaps, in my imperfect world, theatre makes some difference in your life.

Want entertainment?  See one of the zillion Marvel movies.  They're not all that bad, honestly, and a lot of shit blows up.  Personally, though, I'd rather blow YOU up.  Metaphorically, of course.

It’s odd.  People seem to want the warm and familiar with their theatre.  Known quantities.  Tried-n-true.  Christmas plays.  Arbor Day plays.  Million-dollar musicals based on cartoons.  If I thought that was all theatre could offer, I’d pour my time, tears and energy down some other hole.  But I don’t think that.  I know that theatre can be fresh, provocative, incendiary, seditious, transgressive.  It can be goddamned interesting.  That’s what I aspire to write.  And that’s what I hope to offer an audience, every time.  You may not like it, but you sure as hell won’t forget it.

Enjoy the site.  And hey, go out and see a play one of these days, even if it isn't one of mine.