Daniel Leeman Smith is a proud two-spirit citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. He is a New York City based director, playwright, dramaturg, producer, and theatre educator whose work is positioned at the intersection of art, education, community, and activism, focusing on Native joy.

Recent credits include Stories of the Land (Dramaturg, Long Wharf Theatre), Chicago: Pigeon (Dramaturg, New Native Play Festival, Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program), Diné Nishłį (i am a sacred being) Or A Boarding School Play (Director, Alter Theater Ensemble & UC Berkeley), Perhaps the World Ends Here (Writer/Director, NYU Tisch Drama Stage), Ajijaak on Turtle Island (Associate Director, National Tour), Where We Belong (Assistant Director, The Public Theater/Woolly Mammoth), Flying Bird's Diary (Associate Director, Long Wharf Theatre), Dark Earth, Yu-Che-Wah-Kenh, Poyvfekcv, and Built On Bones (Director, New Native Play Festival, Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program), Neechie Itas (Filmographer & Digital Designer, Oklahoma Indigenous Theatre Co.), Perhaps the World Ends Here (Writer/Director/Filmographer/Editor, Local Classic Repertory), and Repulsing the Monkey (Director & Associate Producer, White Horse Tavern). In 2015, he served as the Assistant Stage Manager and 2nd Unit Production Manager on the film Distant Vision, working directly under Academy Award winner Francis Ford Coppola.

In addition to his work in professional theatre, he has been an educator for 15 years, teaching 6th grade through graduate school. He has taught ethnodrama and devised theatre at the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh and Indigenous Theatre at Marymount Manhattan College. Daniel is currently an Adjunct Professor of Theatre Studies in the Department of Drama at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts where he teaches Approaching Indigenous Theatre, and previously taught the practicum course Performing Science and Magic: Devised Theatre Laboratory with Ellen Horne (founding Executive Producer of Radiolab) and Adam Savage (MythBusters). The course was a unique blend of audio reportage and theatre-making which culminated in a performance of the original play The Mystery of the Cardboard Man at the Midnight Theatre. Before joining NYU, Daniel served as the District Chair of Speech, Theatre, Film, and Dance for Putnam City Schools, the fifth-largest public school district in the state of Oklahoma, helping the district earn the prestigious Governor’s Arts in Education Award.

He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, an Associate Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, and a member of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. He is also a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, as well as an alumnus of the SDC Observership Program and Lincoln Center Education’s Teaching Artist Development Lab, where he trained in aesthetic education. He earned his BFA and MA at Oklahoma City University and completed the graduate theatre conservatory program in physical and devised theatre at the SITI Company.

Daniel is a doctoral candidate in the Educational Theatre program in Colleges and Communities at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. His work there is grounded in applied theatre and ethnodrama with a focus on utilizing Indigenous approaches to theatre-making to reduce harm in the professional theatre setting. He is also the founding manager of the NYU Wasserman Center for Career Development's Creative Career Hub, where he is focused on providing career services for students in the arts and entertainment sector and creating experiential learning opportunities that remove systemic barriers for underrepresented students. Daniel is also the 2014 recipient of the New York City Pride Award.