Jessy Lauren Smith is a Chicago-based playwright, educator, producer, storyteller, and claymation enthusiast whose plays have been produced in Chicago, Boston, Colorado, and Texas. She has been a finalist for the Playwrights’ Center Core Apprentice Program, the Heideman Award, the Ingram New Works Lab, and the Theatre Masters National MFA Playwrights Festival; a four-time semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill Playwriting Conference; and a semi-finalist for The Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program, Stage Left’s Playwright Residency, and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. She teaches playwriting and screenwriting through Embarc Chicago and Northwestern University. She is a founding member and Co-Managing Director of the Living Room Playmakers and spent August 2015 working on an LRP project in residency with Blast Theory. She received her MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University.