Interview with Chuck Smith

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    1-27-15 Audio Interview

    As a boy director Chuck Smith felt his family’s distress when his uncle, a Merchant Marine, was lost at sea. Chuck decided that he wanted to matter as much as his beloved uncle and, as soon as possible, enlisted in the Marines, believing that he would spend his life in the service. After two tours Chuck decided to check out civilian life but he found it boring and was just about to re-up when friends asked him to stand in for an actor who had dropped out of a play which was just about to open a local Community Theater. Chuck had no experience of, or even any interest in the theater – in fact he was insulted to be to be asked – after all he was “a military man!” But he agreed to help out his friends. The reaction he got from the audience when he came out for his bow changed his life. Today Chuck, who is dedicated to expanding the reach of African American theater, is a resident director at Chicago’s prestigious Goodman Theater and is a freelance director anywhere that African American theater is growing. Currently he directed a production of Knock me a Kiss written by his friend playwright Charles Smith, for the Westcoast Black Theater Troupe.. Listen to this unusual man tell his unusual story, and come out to see this interesting play which runs through February 8th