adam smith
Education & Process
I'm an experienced educator of 10+ years, having led workshops with all ages: from 2nd graders adapting their favorite story into a play to adults polishing their skills on copywriting and creative process.
As a facilitator, I believe in creating equitable spaces for all voices and a stronger focus on process over product. While our goal is typically to make something: a devised performance, a personal script, a really good headline; my classrooms are often more geared toward opening individuals up to new ways of thinking or problem-solving. I prefer the question of “what could this be?” over the question of “what should this be?”
As a corporate workshop leader, I've been working with nonprofits and brands as a manager, a strategist, and a creative leader for the last 15 years. I, too, have been beholden to stakeholders and brand managers who want it right now because they're presenting it in a meeting in 2 hours. I can help build confidence and skills. Brands I've developed creative and strategies for include Nike, Google, Spotify, JPMorgan Chase, and MetLife.
Here's Some Outside Validation
“Adam is an incredible and generous teaching artist who creates brilliant, one-of-a-kind, striking theatre. A master at “high concept, but make it accessible.” He helps folks transform their work through the simplest, most absurd route forward.” - Natasha Mercado (clown)
Participants on my Nothing to Something workshop
"This workshop is amazing! In only 3 hours, we generated so many new ideas and new ways to approach writing and devising. I feel like we all left the workshop with tons of creative energy flowing. This is truly the epitome of "teach a guy to fish and he'll never go hungry" -- you're not just coming up with one or two ideas, but coming up with a whole process for idea-generation and developing." – RM Aranda (writer/performer)
"Adam’s 1-day workshop... unwound some self-made and societal knots in my brain around creativity and collaboration. I truly entered with absolutely nothing- not an idea in my brain. Or so I thought. Adam guided us through some theory/ lecture and practical applications of creative tools. He facilitated a room with professional experience that ran the gamut, but I could tell felt challenging and rewarding at every level. Adam’s a curious and generous instructor, and his absurd and anti-precious approach helped me to not second guess myself or my ability to have fun and make something with other people. I left the workshop with confidence in my process and a couple ideas for new projects!" – Alyssa Klein (performer/lover of humans/mystic)
"I took this workshop hoping to find a fresh way of approaching my work and that is exactly what I got. It codified creative generation for me in a way that I'm probably going to use every day. I've relied on random inspiration and heartbreak to create for the past ten years, and now I have a system that I can use to make something new any time I please." – Molly Sharpe (writer/performer)
Educational Work
Increasingly Unreproducible Acts (2025 - current)
- Six week devising workshop with a strong focus building chance into both creative process and performance. Students are taught to embrace creating work that is always different (on purpose)
Nothing to Something (2025 - current)
- Workshop series focusing on discovering new ideas and building creative process tools. Original curriculum engages personal memory, chance, the news, and task-based theatre
Teaching Artist @ Unusual Suspects Theatre Company (2023-current)
- Relaunched their intergenerational devised theatre workshop culminating in a public performance
- Developed semester-long devised theatre workshop for middle schoolers
Corporate Workshops (ongoing)
- Workshops and coaching on subjects such as copywriting, creative process and collaboration, creative strategy for brands, full funnel campaigns and social media, brainstorming sprints
Teaching Artist @ Berkeley Rep School of Theater (2017-2018)
- Improv for Public Speaking (6th Grade)
- Story Builders - adapting familiar stories into plays (2nd - 4th grade)
- Civics-Based Playwriting (5th grade)
Teaching Artist @ Meher School Drama Camp (2018)
- Basics of playwriting (2nd-5th grade)
- Personal Narrative in Improvisation (2nd-5th grade)
Guest Artist @ Bowling Green State University (2018 & 2025)
- Movement composition for theatre artists
- Performance as self and task-based theatre
Guest Artist @ Shawl-Anderson Youth Ensemble (2018)
- Commissioned to teach creative process and devise original dance/theatre
piece for high school students
Guest Artist @ University of San Francisco (2018)
- Commissioned to teach creative process and devise original dance/theatre
piece for college students
Founding Artistic Director & Teacher @ San Francisco Neo-Futurists (2012 - 2016)
- Task-driven storytelling; Idea generation; Personal narrative work;
Collaborative process; Age Groups: High School + Adults
On intrusive thoughts
that stop creative process.
Somewhere in life, a lot of people are taught that they aren't allowed to think of themselves as creative or call themselves a "writer." Or we just start believing that performing in front of an audience or public speaking are for other people.
I feel this way about myself all the time.
But my response to you (and me) is always the same: nuh-uh, you can do those things. I like to ask everyone the same question: When you talk to a lover, do you talk to them the same way you talk to a cashier?
I hope not. How you codeswitch and adapt your language, tone, and speaking style to fit a situation means you already understand how to write different lines for different voices. You are a writer. Not only that, but you ALSO already understand how to deliver those lines. You are a performer.
You've already done the thing you're saying you can't do.
Want to chat about a workshop, class, or project you're struggling with?
Use my contact form or slide into my instagram DMs, because I hate spam.
Here's me, waiting for you to reach out.
