Ohio University Master of Fine Arts
Playwriting Faculty News & Info
 Charles
Smith is Head of the MFA Playwriting
Program at Ohio University and
playwright in residence at the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens
Theater in Chicago. His plays have been produced off-Broadway and
around the country by theaters such as Victory Gardens, The Acting
Company, Indiana Repertory Theatre, People's Light & Theatre
Company, The Goodman Theatre, Penumbra, St. Louis Black Rep, New
Federal Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and Berkeley Repertory
Theater. His work has also been produced for the HBO New Writers
Project, the International Children's Theater Festival in Seattle, and
the North Carolina Black Arts Festival. His play Pudd'nhead Wilson enjoyed a twenty-two city national tour and his plays Takunda and City
of Gold enjoyed tours of the west coast. His other plays include Knock
Me a Kiss, Freefall, Les
Trois Dumas, The
Sutherland, Sister
Carrie, Black
Star Line, Jelly
Belly, Young
Richard,
and Cane.
A graduate of
the Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Smith has received commissions from
Victory Gardens, The Goodman, Seattle Rep, Indiana Rep, The Acting
Company, and Ohio University. He is an alumnus of New Dramatists and
has taught playwriting at Northwestern University. His plays can be
obtained through Samuel French, Dramatic Publishing, Smith &
Kraus,
and Meriwether Publishing Ltd. For more information about the plays of
Charles Smith, please visit http://www.csplays.com. Erik
Ramsey shares
teaching duties with Charles Smith in the MFA Playwriting Program at
Ohio University and is also head of BFA playwriting. His plays have
been produced around the country, and several of his short works have
been published by Samuel French and Dramatic Publishing. His recent
play, Lions Lost (In Translation),
has been developed, read and work-shopped at numerous regional theaters
including Cleveland Public Theatre, American Stage, the Tony-award
winning Victory Gardens, and Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre.
Currently, he is writing a trilogy of historical dramas about the
surprising turn of events that boosted Joseph Smith from life as a
small time con-artist to Prophet of the Mormon Church; the first in the
series, titled Smith Unearthed,
was recently featured and developed at WordBRIDGE Play Lab and the
International Society of Contemporary Literature and Theatre (ISCLT)
Conference in Estonia in July, 2007. As a professional new play
dramaturg, Erik has consulted on the development of a number of award
winning plays -- including Julie Jensen's Dust Eaters,
nominated by the American Theatre Critics Association for best new play
produced outside New York in 2005, and one of four finalists for the
PEN USA 2006 Literary Awards for Drama. His two textbooks, The Art of Theatre: Then and Now, and Experiencing the Art of Theatre were published by Thomson/Wadsworth (2006), and in 2007 he was named a
Kennedy Center Faculty Fellow for his work in new play development.
Erik is the Chair of the National Playwriting Program for the Kennedy
Center American College Theater Festival's Region III, which includes
administering the Kennedy Center's new play programming for the states
of Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. |