Brian Smith is Professor and former Head of Drama, and has also served as Associate Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Calgary. His teaching ranges widely through acting, directing, theatre history and collaborative creation, but the focus of his research is the creativity of the performer and the ensemble. He has a special interest in the use of masks in theatre creation, and has led sessions in mask exploration with theatre companies and at conferences across the country and abroad. At the University of Calgary he has directed classic, modern and contemporary plays, including Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Gogol’s The Government Inspector, Ibsen’s Rosmersholm, Lesage’s Turcaret and the Canadian premiere of Dacia Maraini’s Mary Stuart. He has also worked on the development and staging of new plays including Rose Scollard’s Caves of Fancy and her adaptation of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Acting credits with local professional companies include The Philanthropist and Henry IV Part I for Theatre Junction and the Canadian premiere of Tony Kushner’s Slavs with Sage Theatre, as well as locally and nationally broadcast performances with CBC Radio Drama and devised, interdisciplinary work, including River Meditation, with the Prairie Collective. Most recently Prof. Smith was part of the award-winning Ghost River Theatre ensemble that co-created and performed The Alan Parkinson’s Project in June, 2006—a theatrical meditation on the condition of Parkinson’s disease.
