Charles Smith is a member of the Playwrights Ensemble at the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago.  His plays explore issues surrounding the perceptions of race and politics in America.  Much of his work spans a gamut from contemporary investigations of historic icons such as Denmark Vesey, Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. Dubois, and Alexandre Dumas, to examinations of race and politics in a more current setting such as the impact of the end of segregation on Chicago’s Southside.

Smith’s work has been produced off-Broadway and at regional theatres around the country including The Acting Company's twenty-two city tour of his play, Pudd’nhead Wilson. Other theaters that have produced his work include Victory Gardens, Indiana Repertory Theatre, People’s Light & Theatre Company, The Goodman Theatre, Ujima Theatre Company, Penumbra, St. Louis Black Rep, New Federal Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and Berkeley Repertory Theater. His work has also been produced for the HBO New Writers Project, the International Children's Theater Festival in Seattle, and the North Carolina Black Arts Festival.

His plays Freefall and The Sutherland are available through Samuel French. Free Man of Color, Knock Me a Kiss and Les Trois Dumas are available through Dramatic Publishing. Jelly Belly is available in the collection Seven Black Plays published by Northwestern Press.  Takunda and City of Gold are available through the Meriwether Publishing, Ltd. Knock Me a Kiss is also available in Smith & Kraus’ anthology, Best New Plays of 2000. Free Man of Color is also available in the collection Victory Gardens Theater Presents published by Northwestern Press. 

A graduate of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Smith has received commissions from Victory Gardens, The Goodman, Seattle Rep, Indiana Rep, The Acting Company, and Ohio University. He was a member playwright at Tony-Award winning New Dramatists in New York for seven years and is currently the head of the Professional Playwriting Program at Ohio University.