Virginia Smith teaches directing and acting and created the M.F.A. program in Directing for Stage and Screen and the B.A. undergraduate emphasis in Directing and Management.  She became part of the theatre faculty at UNL in the fall of 2000 after sixteen years working as a professional in Chicago. Her directing credits include professional productions for Oak Park Festival Theatre: Romeo and Juliet; The Nebraska Repertory Theatre: Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol, Omnium Gatherum, Crimes of the Heart, Androcles and the Lion, and Dinnertime which performed at the Sam French Off-Off Broadway Theatre Festival in New York City; Equity Library Theatre: Ride Down Mount Morgan, Hamlet, Judevine, and Marisol; among others.  She is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and has directed extensively in university theatre settings. 

Virginia is a member of all three professional actor’s unions: Actors’ Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
She has done numerous commercials, industrial films, and several feature films, including Home Alone, Teachers, The Naked Face and Almost Normal.  Since becominga part of the UNL faculty shehas performed Vivian Bearing in Wit at The Human Race Theatre in Dayton, Ohio and for the Nebraska Rep, Karen in Dinner with Friends, Gertrude in Hamlet, Mommy in Dinnertime and Family Lessons, and Amanda in The Glass Menagerie.  Other acting credits include work at American Players Theatre, Victory Gardens Theatre, The Body Politic Theatre, The Court Theatre, Oak Park Festival Theatre, Chicago Dramatists, Wisdom Bridge, and Equity Library Theatre Chicago.