Phillip Christian Smith

Phillip Christian Smith


Phillip Christian Smith is a member of New Dramatists (class of 2030), a Fire This Time Festival Playwright, a Tennessee Williams Scholar at Sewanee (current staff), Playwrights Realm and Lambda Literary Fellow, Winter Playwrights Retreater. Current Co-Literary Director of Exquisite Corpse Company and former writer in residence. O’Neill, PlayPenn, Trustus, Dramatists Guild, and BAPF Finalist, and runner...

Phillip Christian Smith is a member of New Dramatists (class of 2030), a Fire This Time Festival Playwright, a Tennessee Williams Scholar at Sewanee (current staff), Playwrights Realm and Lambda Literary Fellow, Winter Playwrights Retreater. Current Co-Literary Director of Exquisite Corpse Company and former writer in residence. O’Neill, PlayPenn, Trustus, Dramatists Guild, and BAPF Finalist, and runner-up for The Risk Modern Tragedy Award. His work has been supported by Quicksilver, Bennington College, Alliance for The Arts, Primary Stages (Cherry Lane) ESPA, Fresh Ground Pepper, The Adirondack Theatre Festival, Forge, and the 53rd Street New York Public Library. He teaches acting at Pace University and playwriting at Hunter College. BFA University of New Mexico, MFA Yale School of Drama. MFA Hunter College ’23. He is currently working on a Roe Green Commission with The Cleveland Playhouse.

Plays

  • Riverside Drive by Phillip Christian Smith
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: adventure, comedy + 4 more
    Genre: adventure, comedy, dark comedy, drama, mystery/thriller, period
    Eugene, a mild-mannered librarian by day and a foul mouthed comedian by night, uncovers the hidden legacy of his family's Harlem home which forces him to transform his life.
  • Some Charter School Presents The Medea--A Rap Tragedy by Phillip Christian Smith
    Cast: 
    5–8
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy + 7 more
    ·
    Keyword: Rap Musical, Beat Box
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy, drama, fable/folktale, musical, pageant, political, tragedy, verse
    Keyword: Rap Musical, Beat Box
    A group of young Black girls, in a Charter school, decide to put on The Medea during 5th and 6th period. Stage Directions aka Chantal, is beyond pissed that she isn't playing Medea and that a girl named Meshea is playing Medea. Coincidence or Conspiracy? It's a Rap Tragedy.
  • A Handbag is Not a Proper Mutha by Phillip Christian Smith
    Cast: 
    10
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, comedy + 7 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy, dark comedy, fantasy, farce, pageant, period, political, romantic comedy
    When Roger comes home from his shift at The Duane Reade, he finds that the children of his Harlem Ballroom house have created a production of The Importance of Being Earnest for his birthday, and he's to play the imperious lead, Mutha Bracknell.
  • Walking While Black by Phillip Christian Smith
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: drama, political
    ·
    Keyword: police, American race relations and racism
    Genre: drama, political
    Keyword: police, American race relations and racism
    A transplanted middle-aged Black couple, from New York, move to an affluent neighborhood in St. Louis. They discover that the Gateway to the West is the South.
  • We Can't Breathe by Phillip Christian Smith
    Recommendations: 3
    ·
    Cast: 
    7
    ·
    Genre: drama, political + 1 more
    ·
    Keyword: Race, eric garner + 2 more
    Genre: drama, political, tragedy
    Keyword: Race, eric garner, gay teenagers, black
    WE CAN’T BREATHE: 5M 2W. In the wake of the 2014 murder of Eric Garner, two gay, black teenagers, living in Bushwick, wish to protest and have their voices heard. The boys are not only coming to terms with their own sexuality, but also their place as black men in America. They deal with fear, hostility, and ambivalence, not only from society, but also from their own families (PlayPenn Finalist, O’Neill...
    WE CAN’T BREATHE: 5M 2W. In the wake of the 2014 murder of Eric Garner, two gay, black teenagers, living in Bushwick, wish to protest and have their voices heard. The boys are not only coming to terms with their own sexuality, but also their place as black men in America. They deal with fear, hostility, and ambivalence, not only from society, but also from their own families (PlayPenn Finalist, O’Neill semifinalist). Playwrights Realm Reading.
  • The Chechens by Phillip Christian Smith
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    5
    ·
    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: Politics, LGBTQ + 2 more
    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller, political, tragedy
    Keyword: Politics, LGBTQ, accents, suspense
    THE CHECHENS: 3 WOMEN 2 MEN In modern Chechnya rumors are going around that homosexuals are being held in camps. Can one family protect their little brother who may or may not be gay, will they turn him in, will they honor kill him. The Parlour, August 2018 directed by Tess Howsam, Exquisite Corpse. O’Neill semifinalist. 2nd production upcoming 2020-21 Season: Theatre Conspiracy, winner of their playwriting award.
  • Hippolytus in Space by Phillip Christian Smith
    Cast: 
    4–5
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy + 5 more
    ·
    Keyword: gay, lgbtqia
    Genre: adaptation, dark comedy, drama, experimental, mystery/thriller, science fiction, tragedy
    Keyword: gay, lgbtqia
    Hippolytus, a young boy, is left alone for five years on a space station with an AI named Serena during an interstellar pandemic, which is particularly dwindling an already beleaguered female population. The boy gets a little more than weird. When Hippolytus is ten, his father brings his new young husband Phraedric from The Earth Planet to be a lover to him and a mother for the boy.




  • Comedy, Errors, Vanity, and Stupidity by Phillip Christian Smith
    Cast: 
    10–12
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, adventure + 5 more
    ·
    Keyword: large cast, college + 2 more
    Genre: adaptation, adventure, comedy, farce, movement/physical, period, verse
    Keyword: large cast, college, Verse and Prose, Shakespeare Sequel.
    COMEDY, ERRORS, VANITY, AND STUPIDITY: 12 CAST 4-6 W 6-8 M. A sequel to The Comedy of Errors. One year later Egeon’s secret that the Antipholus and Dromios are actually triplets comes into the light featuring a female triplet Dromia, much confusion ensues. This play is in verse and prose, and gender casting can be fluid. Semifinalist for Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries at The American Shakespeare Center.
  • Minding Miss Mae Mae by Phillip Christian Smith
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    MINDING MISS MAE MAE: 2W 1M. Barbara mid 50’s is Miss Mae Mae’s (also mid 50’s) home health aide. When Barbara’s son Jordan, the star of a network procedural, comes home ravaged from Crystal Meth, the women form their own unconventional rehab to detox him, so he can be ready for a new season of the show. Barbara believes in tough love; Miss Mae Mae who is paraplegic, and a pot smoker, believes in The Lord. This...
    MINDING MISS MAE MAE: 2W 1M. Barbara mid 50’s is Miss Mae Mae’s (also mid 50’s) home health aide. When Barbara’s son Jordan, the star of a network procedural, comes home ravaged from Crystal Meth, the women form their own unconventional rehab to detox him, so he can be ready for a new season of the show. Barbara believes in tough love; Miss Mae Mae who is paraplegic, and a pot smoker, believes in The Lord. This is an all-black cast. Finalist Trustus. Semi-finalist PlayPenn.
  • The Last Temptation of Matthew Shepard by Phillip Christian Smith
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: comedy, docudrama/historic + 2 more
    ·
    Keyword: LGBTQ
    Genre: comedy, docudrama/historic, political, tragedy
    Keyword: LGBTQ
    In current Russia, a young man yearning for the touch of another man summons the spectre of Matthew Shepard who was famously left to die on a fence outside of Laramie Wyoming in 1998. The problem is an organization that poses as gay men on the Internet and then tortures and films their victims and posts the whole ordeal without fear of government reprisal. Can Matthew
    Shepard save this young man or will...
    In current Russia, a young man yearning for the touch of another man summons the spectre of Matthew Shepard who was famously left to die on a fence outside of Laramie Wyoming in 1998. The problem is an organization that poses as gay men on the Internet and then tortures and films their victims and posts the whole ordeal without fear of government reprisal. Can Matthew
    Shepard save this young man or will he fall into a trap similar to his hero.