Robert Scott Smith, Assistant Professor, Associate Chair and Head for the Actor Training Program at the University of Utah, is a professional actor who received his MFA from the prestigious Old Globe Theatre Actor Training Program at the University of San Diego and his BFA from the Actor Training Program at the University of Utah.

As a professional actor, NYC credits include Kreutzer Sonata (United Solo Festival), Keeping Ishmael (Workshop); Pericles (SLANT); SLC acting credits include Gold Mountain (Utah Shakespeare), Mary Stuart, The Crucible and Two Henrys (PTC); Sleeping Giant (World Premiere), Yoga Play, Saturday’s Voyeur, Climbing with Tigers, Rapture Blister Burn, Good People, Charm (World Premiere), Swimming in the Shallows, Six Years, Big Love, Batboy: The Musical and Gross Indecency (Salt Lake Acting Company); A Streetcar Named Desire, Our Town (The Grand Theatre); and Ice Front (World Premiere), Kreutzer Sonata (World Premiere) and Bash (Plan-B). Film credits include AESOP (Episodic Series), Kill The Babysitter (UK FrightFest 2020), Jewtah, Wildlife (Official Selection Cannes Métrage Selection 2015) Blessing, and Animae.

Robert Scott is also Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Flying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratory. As a creative laboratory, FBTL, creates experiential storytelling. In our creative process, we fuse the spoken word, movement, sound and visual design elements to tell visceral, whole-hearted stories. Most recent work includes Liminal. Liminal is the stage component of a partnership between the Department of Theatre, Flying Bobcat Theatrical Laboratory, and Also Sisters. The stage play was written by Troy Deutsch, based on an original idea by Also Sisters—internationally-recognized filmmakers, multimedia storytellers, and Assistant Professors in the Film and Media Arts—and developed with the assistance of local playwright Brandan Ngo and Plan B Theatre’s Theatre Artists of Color Writing Workshop. An upcoming film by Also Sisters, currently in pre-production, is another component of this collaboration. Other featured work at the Great Salt Lake Fringe 2021, Ronald & Edith by Connor Nelis Johnson, which was directed by Co-Artistic Director Alexandra Harbold (Best of Fest and Audience Award) and Strangers: a homo’s odyssey by Tom Roche (Outstanding Solo Performance). Strangers will also be part of the United Solo Screen Festival. Both projects were written and performed by recent U of U alumni and Co-Produced by FBTL. In December 2020, Salt Lake Acting Company presented Climbing with Tigers, which Flying Bobcat created in partnership with SLAC and Red Fred in 2016, to launch SLAC’s digital platform. After viewing our archival production, TheaterWorksUSA distributed the play to classrooms nationwide via their new educational streaming platform in April 2021. Past projects include an original work created in collaboration with Ririe-Woodbury and Flying Bobcat, Allegory (2020 Re-Imagined) and Live Creature and Ethereal Things (2019) a dance performance inspired by The Red Fred Project. Other recent collaborations include the 2018 world premiere of Jump, a co-production with Plan-B in partnership with The David Ross Fetzer Foundation for Emerging Artists; in 2016 the World Premiere of Climbing with Tigers, adapted for the stage by Troy Deutsch, based on the book by Nathan Glad and Dallas Graham Produced by Salt Lake Acting Company in collaboration with Flying Bobcat and Red Fred Project. Climbing was a new devised work involving animation and live action and was featured in American Theatre Magazine May 2016. In September 2014 Flying Bobcat collaborated with the SLC Men’s Choir to create Lost in the Woods a theatrical concert at The Masonic Temple. In May 2015 collaborated with choreographer Charlotte Boye-Christensen, NOW-ID and NYC Playwright Troy Deutsch to create FEAST a site-specific performance at The Great Saltair. As former Creative Director at The Leonardo Museum in SLC he created the POPUP@LEO program; a fusion of science, technology and art, which featured three new devised theatrical productions, Senses 5, Love, and Mind Over Matter.

Directing credits include credits include The View Upstairs by Max Vernon with Good Company; As You Like It, Tartuffe (adaptation by Ranjit Bolt), and Big Love by Charles Mee with the U of U Department of Theatre; SLAC’s New Play Sounding Series reading of Reykjavik by Steve Yockey; PLAN-B Script-in-Hand series reading of Quarter Horse by Rob Tennant; and in 2016, directed a sold out run of an All-Female Production of Hamlet in conjunction with the University of Utah Department of Theatre featuring actors from the Actor Training Program and Musical Theatre Program.