Auriol Smith

Auriol Smith
Auriol Smith in 2010
Spouse(s)	Sam Walters

Auriol Smith is an English actress and theatre director. She was a founder member and associate director of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London. She co-founded the theatre in 1971 with her husband Sam Walters, who became the United Kingdom's longest-serving artistic director. Walters and Smith stepped down from their posts at the Orange Tree Theatre in June 2014.

Whilst taking a degree in drama at Bristol University she became President of the Green Room Society at the newly founded university Drama Department. This was followed by a year in America as a Fulbright Scholar, before making her professional debut at the Hampstead Theatre Club in January 1960 in Harold Pinter's first play The Room (which she had originally played in a converted squash-court for the Bristol Drama Department in May 1957).

After extensive experience in repertory theatres and a year in Jamaica setting up a drama school and theatre, she and her husband Sam Walters co-founded the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London in 1971, where she played many classic and modern parts. "We enjoyed doing small-scale productions in Jamaica, and hoped that eventually we'd run that kind of theatre in England. Then, when we returned in 1971, we decided that now was the time and Richmond (where we lived) was the place." (Auriol Smith in conversation with Marsha Hanlon for the Orange Tree Appeal brochure, 1991).

In the old theatre:

The new theatre opened in February 1991. Her Orange Tree performance credits there included:

From 1991 to 2014 she also regularly directed at the Orange Tree. Her credits included:

During 1990, as part of a busy year, she played Lady Wishfort in The Way of the World at the Royal Exchange Manchester (deputising for Sylvia Syms who was indisposed), and toured North America for the ACTER company in The Winter's Tale playing opposite Paul Shelley as Leontes. She also appeared in Christine Edzard's film The Fool.