Murphy Taylor Smith is an actress, songwriter, and musician. She is passionate about creating an dynamic, authentic canon for transgender performers, as both a writer and actress, and believes that diversity doesn’t just make art more inclusive - it makes it better.
She played Rabbi Raquel and Gittel in A TRANSPARENT MUSICAL, directed by Tina Landau which premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in May 2023. She also plays the lead role of Ashley Curtis in the upcoming film OH SUGAR! written and directed by Gabe Dunn; and real life trans artist Greer Lankton in DOLL/GIRL: A NEW MUSICAL which recently played two sold out shows at Joe’s Pub. While at Penn State, she originated the role of Kitty Minx in Joe Iconis’ LOVE IN HATE NATION.
With her identical twin sister Emerson, she has written several full length musicals including: WATCHDOG, a twin psycho thriller; ELEKTRIC, a trans woman centered Oresteia; RADIO: A Musical Ghost Story, a lesbian horror synth-pop romance (OCR available on Spotify and Apple Music). Her latest release MONSTER is also available to stream now. For her songwriting, she was named the 2019 York Theatre N/E/O Writer of the Future and her work has been performed at Feinstein’s/54 Below, Green Room 42, and other venues around NYC.