Tennessee Playwrights Studio

Tennessee Playwrights Studio is a playwright development lab and theatre production company that was founded in 2018 by Kenley Smith and Molly Breen to offer in-state playwrights the opportunity to develop fresh, incisive scripts that reflect a changing world. TPS Fellows and Associates typically meet one Sunday per month at the Darkhorse Theatre Chapel in Nashville to develop their scripts with the help of peer feedback and readings with local actors, TPS then presents public staged readings of these working first drafts in late fall/winter.

In 2019, we broadened our scope to include the production of Tennessee-based theatre, and our first World Premiere production was MAIDENS by Kenley Smith. Our next project, co-produced with Angela Gimlin, will be THAT WOMAN, which is comprised of 10 original monologues from the perspective of women involved (or rumored-to-be-involved) with President John F. Kennedy.

In January of 2021, we formed a partnership between TPS and two of the most productive and dynamic Black-owned theatre companies in Nashville: The Destiny Theatre Experience and SistaStyle Productions for collaboration on the production of new works.  Further, we pledge that for every dollar that is donated to Tennessee Playwrights Studio, the co-founders of TPS will personally match 50% of the amount of said donation, and this match amount will be divided equally between these two companies.

ABOUT US

Kenley Smith co-founded and directs the TPS playwriting program. He came to Nashville in 2011 as an Ingram New Works playwright, and he facilitated the Writing Room at Nashville Rep from 2015 to 2017. Earlier, Kenley founded Studio Roanoke, a new-works venue in Virginia that put up some 30 first or second productions from 2009 to 2012. His plays, including DEVIL SEDAN, EMPIRES OF ETERNAL VOID and MAIDENS, have been produced in Chicago, Nashville, Memphis and Omaha; AKUMA-SHIN received its world premiere in 2018 at Sacred Fools Theatre in Los Angeles. All three plays were MainStage selections at the Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha.

Molly Breen is a co-founder, Program Coordinator, and Producer for TPS. She is an actor who loves working with new plays and playwright and has appeared on stage in Atlanta, DC, Kentucky, Los Angeles, Nashville, and New York. She has also originated roles in over 15 world premiere productions. As a writer, she has received fellowships with the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts.