a staged reading of a play-in-progress by Kenley Smith: MAIDENS

Join us Tuesday, February 12, 4:30–6:30 pm, at the Ingram MT Center for a staged reading of Kenley Smith’s play-in-progress, Maidens, featuring Nashville actor Molly Breen (whom you may remember from our staged reading of Beyond Words in October) and a cast of MTSU actors.

Kenley Smith is director of Tennessee Playwrights Studio, a developmental lab for in-state dramatists. He was an Ingram playwright-in-residence at Nashville Rep for the 2011–12 season. His full-length play, Akuma-Shin, premiered in Los Angeles in March and was a MainStage selection of the 2015 Great Plains Theatre Conference. Kenley’s Empires of Eternal Void was developed through the Rep’s Ingram New Works Lab and was a MainStage Selection at the 2013 GPTC. Devil Sedan also was featured in 2008 at GPTC and has been produced in Omaha, Roanoke, Nashville and Chicago. Devil Sedan won first place at the Barter Theatre’s 2008 Festival of Appalachian Plays and Playwrights and took top honors in the West Virginia Writers, Inc., Joe McCabe Memorial Playwriting Competition in 2009. Kenley earned an M.F.A. in Playwriting and an M.A. in English and Creative Writing, both from Hollins University. He has taught playwriting at Randolph College in Lynchburg, VA, and at the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference. Stay tuned for our In Process interview with Kenley in the coming weeks.

Molly Breen is an actor who loves working with new plays/playwrights. She has originated roles in more than 15 new, full productions and has acted in several new play festivals, including the Tennessee Playwrights Studio, Nashville’s Ten Minute Playhouse, the Writing Room at Nashville Rep, the Atlanta Black Theatre Festival and NYC & DC Fringe, along with regularly performing in local Nashville theatre productions. As a writer, she has received fellowships with the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts.