Murphy Taylor Smith is a transgender actress, composer/lyricist, and musician. She is passionate about creating an authentic canon for transgender people in musical theatre, both as a writer and performer.

As an actress, she originated the roles of Rabbi Raquel and Gittel in A Transparent Musical which was directed by Tina Landau and premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in 2023. Other credit Doll in Bedlam: The Series (dir. Eric Tucker) and the industry workshops for Fowl Play (dir. John Tartaglia) and The Immaculate Perfection… (dir. Margot Bordelon). While at Penn State, she originated the roles of Kitty Minx in Joe Iconis’ Love in Hate Nation and Arabella in Sam Salmond’s Dust and Embers, both directed by John Simpkins.

As a composer/lyricist, she was named the 2019 York Theatre New/Emerging/Outstanding Writer of the Future. She has written several full length musicals in collaboration with her twin sister Emerson, including: ELEKTRIC, a trans woman centered adaptation of Electra; RADIO: A Musical Ghost Story, a horror synth-pop lesbian romance (OCR available on Spotify and Apple Music). She and Emerson premiered their post-pandemic cabaret act The Smith Twins are… Terminally Online! at Feinstein’s/54 Below in August 2021, and returned in May 2022 as a part of the New Writers @ 54! series.

She is a proud voice for young trans and gender non-conforming people, and hopes to lead by example towards inclusion.