OUR GOAL: The goal of Putnam City Theatre and Debate is to ensure students are college and career ready. We aim to provide high school students with professional theatre experiences and prepare them for whatever future endeavors their hearts wish to follow. More than anything, we hope to awaken young minds—to create critical thinkers—to create people who think like artists.
MR. SMITH'S TEACHING ARTIST PHILOSOPHY:
I am a theatre maker, an artist, but beyond that I am an activist. I am an awakener. I believe that because we are all humans that we are all artists -- because I believe that beauty and the power to delight and heal exists within us all. I believe that each student is capable and worthy of professional theatre artistry. Because of my beliefs I challenge, but I also hold open the door. Through love and a desire to give my students the world — I push.
ABOUT MR. SMITH: Mr. Smith is a director, multi-disciplinary theatre maker, activist, and educator based in Oklahoma City. He is an alumnus of the SITI Company's Graduate Theatre Conservatory in New York, NY, and was a member of their inaugural class. He studied with company members and Co-Artistic Directors, Anne Bogart, Ellen Lauren, and Leon Ingulsrud, and took workshops with a number of world renowned theatre artists. He is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab.
Smith is the founder and Producing Artistic Director of The Marshall Experimental Company and has worked with numerous Oklahoma City companies including: Oklahoma Contemporary, The Oklahoma City Ballet, CityRep, OK Shakespeare in the Park, and many others. He served as the Assistant Stage Manager and 2nd Unit Production Manager for the first workshop iteration of Francis Ford Coppola's experimental film, Distant Vision, and also served as a Production Stage Manager and Talent Manager for New York City Pride in 2014, 2015, and 2017. He has appeared Off-Broadway with the SITI Conservatory in This Is How I Don't Know How To Dance (The Barrow Group Theatre), and lent his voice to This Is Not A Theatre Company's The Ferry Play, a site-specific smartphone play set on the Staten Island Ferry. The Ferry Play completed its run in the 2016 New York International Fringe Festival. It was listed as one of The New York Times “Top 10 Shows To Watch For,” and received a write up in American Theatre Magazine and The Wall Street Journal.
Smith is a frequent collaborator at the award winning Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre, where his choreography for Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play was called "striking" in a review by BroadwayWorld.com. CityRep credits include: Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, Peter and the Starcatcher, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Greater Tuna, The Normal Heart, November, and The Glass Menagerie. Other Oklahoma City area theatre includes: Buried Child, Cabaret, and Measure for Measure (Oklahoma City Theatre Company), A Christmas Carol and Puss in Boots (Oklahoma Children's Theatre), Richard III, Titus Andronicus, and Everyman (Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Ghostlight Theatre Club), and The Hospice (Theatre Collective OKC).
As an educator, Smith serves as the District Chair of Theatre and Dance for the Putnam City Public School District, the fifth largest public district in Oklahoma. He began working in arts education as a teaching artist in 2009. In addition to his work in public ed, Smith travels the southwest teaching the Suzuki Method of Actor Training and the Viewpoints.
Smith is the 2014 recipient of the New York City Pride Award for his philanthropic and civil rights work with the acclaimed Heritage of Pride. He holds a BFA and MA from Oklahoma City University, has completed post graduate studies at the SITI Company’s Graduate Theatre Conservatory, and is an alumnus of the Teaching Artist Development Lab at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Smith is an Associate Member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, is a candidate for membership in Actors Equity Association, and is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab.
I am a theatre maker, an artist, but beyond that I am an activist. I am an awakener. I believe that because we are all humans that we are all artists -- because I believe that beauty and the power to delight and heal exists within us all. I believe that each student is capable and worthy of professional theatre artistry. Because of my beliefs I challenge, but I also hold open the door. Through love and a desire to give my students the world — I push.
ABOUT MR. SMITH: Mr. Smith is a director, multi-disciplinary theatre maker, activist, and educator based in Oklahoma City. He is an alumnus of the SITI Company's Graduate Theatre Conservatory in New York, NY, and was a member of their inaugural class. He studied with company members and Co-Artistic Directors, Anne Bogart, Ellen Lauren, and Leon Ingulsrud, and took workshops with a number of world renowned theatre artists. He is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab.
Smith is the founder and Producing Artistic Director of The Marshall Experimental Company and has worked with numerous Oklahoma City companies including: Oklahoma Contemporary, The Oklahoma City Ballet, CityRep, OK Shakespeare in the Park, and many others. He served as the Assistant Stage Manager and 2nd Unit Production Manager for the first workshop iteration of Francis Ford Coppola's experimental film, Distant Vision, and also served as a Production Stage Manager and Talent Manager for New York City Pride in 2014, 2015, and 2017. He has appeared Off-Broadway with the SITI Conservatory in This Is How I Don't Know How To Dance (The Barrow Group Theatre), and lent his voice to This Is Not A Theatre Company's The Ferry Play, a site-specific smartphone play set on the Staten Island Ferry. The Ferry Play completed its run in the 2016 New York International Fringe Festival. It was listed as one of The New York Times “Top 10 Shows To Watch For,” and received a write up in American Theatre Magazine and The Wall Street Journal.
Smith is a frequent collaborator at the award winning Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre, where his choreography for Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play was called "striking" in a review by BroadwayWorld.com. CityRep credits include: Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, Peter and the Starcatcher, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Greater Tuna, The Normal Heart, November, and The Glass Menagerie. Other Oklahoma City area theatre includes: Buried Child, Cabaret, and Measure for Measure (Oklahoma City Theatre Company), A Christmas Carol and Puss in Boots (Oklahoma Children's Theatre), Richard III, Titus Andronicus, and Everyman (Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Ghostlight Theatre Club), and The Hospice (Theatre Collective OKC).
As an educator, Smith serves as the District Chair of Theatre and Dance for the Putnam City Public School District, the fifth largest public district in Oklahoma. He began working in arts education as a teaching artist in 2009. In addition to his work in public ed, Smith travels the southwest teaching the Suzuki Method of Actor Training and the Viewpoints.
Smith is the 2014 recipient of the New York City Pride Award for his philanthropic and civil rights work with the acclaimed Heritage of Pride. He holds a BFA and MA from Oklahoma City University, has completed post graduate studies at the SITI Company’s Graduate Theatre Conservatory, and is an alumnus of the Teaching Artist Development Lab at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Smith is an Associate Member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, is a candidate for membership in Actors Equity Association, and is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab.
ABOUT MR. FLEMMING: Mr. Flemming is in his seventh year teaching stagecraft and serving as the auditorium manager at PCHS. He loves working with this great group of students creating, producing, and supporting the arts at PCO. Mr. Flemming is an adjunct professor of communications at Southern Nazarene University. Prior to joining the faculty at PCO, Mr. Flemming spent 19 years working in Asia as the Regional Communication Coordinator for WMC-AP.org, which is a non-profit multimedia organization.