Leigh Wilson Smiley

Director, UMD School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies

Leigh Wilson Smiley has been the Director of the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS) since 2013. Smiley is the Producing Director for nine Main Stage dance and theater shows and five Second Season shows. Prior to assuming leadership of TDPS, Smiley served as a professor in the School, Head of the first MFA in Performance cohort at TDPS, and Associate Director of Theatre for the School.

Smiley was twice nominated as a Philip Merrill Presidential Scholar Faculty Mentor. She has received two Creative and Performing Arts Awards for her research on the extended voice and the Visual Accent Dialect Archive, a Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities Fellowship and the Foxworth Creative Enterprise Initiative Fellowship.

Smiley works as a Dialect and Voice Director for institutions such as Ford’s Theatre, Center Stage in Baltimore and Round House Theatre. She continues to develop and present the Visual Accent and Dialect Archive. She is a member of Actors Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and the Voice and Speech Trainers Association.