Leigh Smiley is Director of the School of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies (TDPS) at the University of Maryland and a professional coach and designer of Voice, Dialect, Text and Presentations for theatre, film and business
Leigh has received two Creative and Performing Arts Awards for her research on the extended voice and the Visual Accent Dialect Archive. She received 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, Round House Theatre and 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.
Presentation and teaching include the International Festival for Making Theatre, Athens Greece; Giving Voice Festival, Aberystwth Wales; Voice Symposium, Philadelphia; George Washington University; Center for Baroque & Renaissance Studies; Fordham Lincoln Center; Emerson College; Georgetown University; People's Light and Theatre; University of Pennsylvania; DeSales University; New York University and the University of the Arts.