Alena Smith was awarded the ASCAP Cole Porter Prize in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama in 2006. She has been a finalist for the O’Neill Playwrights Conference and the Princess Grace Award in Playwriting. Her play The Lacy Project was produced in the 2007 Ice Factory festival at the Ohio Theatre, NYC. Previously, the play was developed in Soho Think Tank’s Sixth Floor Series (also at the Ohio), and was produced in the first annual Carlotta Festival of New Plays at the Yale School of Drama. Alena’s other plays include Alice Eat Your Words (Northwestern University, Yale Cabaret, Haverford College), It or Her (Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, Brown University), Saturnalia in Poughkeepsie (Yale), and Apple of Discord (Philadelphia Fringe). Since 2002, she has been the resident playwright of Dead Genius Productions, an independent performance-making ensemble, originally based in Philadelphia. Alena is a graduate of Haverford College, where she received Honors in Philosophy, and has studied Philosophy and English at the University of Oxford. MFA, 2006, Yale School of Drama.
American Repertory Theatre