The Flea Theater Selects Niegel Smith as New Artistic Director

The Flea Theater has announced that director and performance artist Niegel Smith will take on the role of artistic director of the nonprofit theater company. Smith is set to assume leadership in May and will begin by helming the 2015-2016 season and preparing for the 2016-2017 season.

Smith was born in North Carolina and raised in Detroit. A Dartmouth-educated artist, his work ranges from musicals to new plays to participatory performance. Smith was the associate director of the Tony Award-winning musical Fela!. He assistant-directed the off-Broadway incarnation of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and both the Broadway and off-Broadway productions of Caroline, or Change. Smith also worked on the artistic staffs of The Public Theater, Trinity Repertory Company, and Providence Black Rep. He is a 35th-anniversary artist-in residence at Second Stage Theatre and serves as associate artistic director of Elastic City.

Founding Artistic Director Jim Simpson and Producing Director Carol Ostrow, alongside a board-appointed committee, interviewed a large number of theater artists from both the uptown and downtown theater world.