Charles Smith’s plays include Objects in the Mirror, Free Man of Color, Knock Me a Kiss, Jelly Belly, The Gospel According to James, Pudd’nhead Wilson, Sister Carrie, The Sutherland, Freefall, Les Trois Dumas and Black Star Line. His plays have been produced by Goodman Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, New Federal Theatre, The Acting Company, People’s Light, Penumbra Theatre, Crossroads Theatre Company, Penguin Rep Theatre, Ujima Company, Inc., The Colony Theatre, St. Louis Black Rep, Seattle Rep, Jubilee Theatre, The Ensemble Theatre in Houston, Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, The Robey Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Ensemble Theatre in Cleveland and Independent Theatre in Adelaide, South Australia, among others. He is a recipient of the Joseph Jefferson Award, John W. Schmid Award, two Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards, an Illinois Arts Council Governor’s Award, Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, Princess Grace Theater Fellowship, the Cornerstone National Playwriting Award, the Joyce Award, The National Black Theatre Festival’s August Wilson Playwriting Award, the Theodore Ward National Playwriting Award, two Black Theatre Alliance Awards for New Work, the NBC New Voices Award and numerous other AUDELCO, Jeff, NAACP and Black Theatre Alliance award nominations. An alumnus playwright of New Dramatists, graduate of the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and one of the founding members of the Playwrights Ensemble at Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago, Smith has taught playwriting at Northwestern University, Ohio University, the Prague Summer Program in Creative Writing in the Czech Republic and the Center for Dramatic Art in Groznjan, Croatia.