Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for Professional Directions: Expand Your Scope: Working as a Creative in Entertainment with Carolyn Michelle Smith on Friday, March 13, from 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm, in Room 220, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. Open to all Cornell students. Lunch will be provided. RSVP to pma@cornell.edu by Wednesday, March 11.
During this conversation, acclaimed actress, producer, and educator Carolyn Michelle Smith will discuss building a sustainable and empowered career in entertainment. Smith has a dynamic body of work spanning television, film, and Broadway. Beyond her work onscreen and onstage, she has served as a Visiting Lecturer in Cornell’s Performing and Media Arts Department, teaching Advanced On-Camera Technique, Intro to Acting, and PMA Studios, where she guided students in producing their own short films. As a producer and longtime creative entrepreneur, she brings firsthand insight into generating, developing, and sustaining meaningful work in today’s industry.
In this candid discussion, Carolyn will speak with students about:
What it truly means to be a professional in entertainment
How to build, nurture, and strategically utilize your network
Collaborating with peers to create and produce original work
Developing resilience practices for longevity in a competitive industry
The necessary care and advocacy for creatives of color — both collectively and individually — to ensure sustainability, visibility, and well-being.
This conversation is an opportunity to engage deeply with the realities of the industry while gathering practical tools for artistry, leadership, and expanding your skill set after graduation. It will appeal to a diverse range of students to rethink what it means to create a life in the entertainment industry. This event will especially appeal to students of underrepresented groups, to remind them that their stories are necessary to be told within the Entertainment landscape.
Carolyn Michelle Smith is an Actress, Educator, and Producer originally from Washington DC. She received her BA in Theater Performance from Fordham University at Lincoln Center, and later received her post-graduate degree in Drama from Juilliard. As an Actress, Carolyn currently stars in the award-winning film Familiar Touch, directed by Sarah Friedland, available on Prime Video and Apple TV. Select TV credits include: Brilliant Minds, Chicago Med, THE CHI (Seasons 5 and 6), And Just Like That, Russian Doll, House of Cards, Law and Order, How to Get Away with Murder, and Cherish the Day. This fall, she’ll star in Kevin Jerome Everson’s narrative debut feature Lowndes County, followed by Indie feature The Next Play written and directed by Koula and Katina Sossiadis.
As an Educator, Carolyn has served as Co-Director of Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Mentorship Lab in Hollywood leading a cohort of emerging BIPOC actors, writers, and creative execs. She’s led and developed curriculum for Cornell University’s Performing and Media Department as a Visiting Lecturer, Fordham University’s Theater Program, and SUNY Binghamton. She’s been a faculty member for Tom Todoroff Studios, Harlem School of The Arts, Los Angeles Performing Arts Conservatory, and The Shakespeare Society in NYC. Guiding actors through audition technique and performance for nearly 15 years, Carolyn now operates AspireHigher Coaching Services, Inc. providing one-on-one coaching for actors and curriculum consultations for leading educational institutions. As the entertainment landscape shifts, Carolyn Michelle Smith guides from the intersection of artistry, empowerment, and antiracism, drawing from her rich Trinidadian heritage and her commitment to elevating diverse voices.
The Professional Directions series invites industry experts to speak about their career journeys as screenwriters, playwrights, actors, editors, producers, directors, theatre critics, dramaturgs, and more. These Q&A sessions are free and open to the public.
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Carolyn Michelle Smith will also be holding two acting workshops, including an Advanced Acting Workshop, on Thursday, March 12, from 4:45pm-6:15pm, in the Black Box Theatre (SB21), and a Beginner Acting Workshop on Friday, March 13, from 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm, in the Dance Studio Theatre (SB10). Click here to learn more about these acting workshops.
