Tara Blau Smollen is a San Francisco Bay Area playwright, director, and actor drawn to reimagining classical works and amplifying underrepresented voices onstage. Her plays explore questions of power, love, and identity through a lens of cultural and historical complexity.

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She is a two-time semifinalist for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference (2025, 2026), and a finalist for the Kaplan Playwright Award, the Stanley Drama Award, and the New Works of Merit Award. She was also a finalist for Lifeline Theatre’s BIPOC Adaptation Workshop in Chicago. Her work has been developed through Abingdon Theatre Company’s Raise the Page/Uplift the Word Festival in New York City, Shotgun Players’ Champagne Staged Reading Series in Berkeley, CA and the Bronze Collective Theater Festival in Rochester, NY.

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As a director, Tara has worked at: Theater Lunatico, Cinnabar Theater Company, 6th Street Playhouse, Porchlight Theater Company, Shotgun Players, and Contra Costa College. Her production of Jen Silverman’s The Moors was named one of the San Francisco Chronicle Datebook’s Best Plays of 2024. She is also the co-founder and former Artistic Director of Porchlight Theater Company in Ross, California.

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A proud member of Actors' Equity Association (credited professionally as Tara Blau), she has appeared in more than 70 productions, including: Amanda in Private Lives, Masha in Three Sisters, and Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons. Some of the theaters she has worked with include: Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Aurora Theatre Company, Porchlight Theater Company, Sacramento Theatre Company, Pacific Alliance Stage Company, Golden Thread Productions, and TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. She is the recipient of three Dean Goodman Awards for Lead Actress in a Play and two SFBATCC nominations for Lead Actress in a Play.

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Tara is the co-founder of Playwright Power: The First 100 Days, a national playwriting initiative encouraging playwrights to respond to the current political moment, culminating in a March 2025 production at Open Space Arts in Chicago, which she directed. 

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Her work is driven by an interest in expanding the canon and creating stories that allow audiences and performers to see themselves reflected with complexity, humanity, and emotional truth onstage.

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She holds a BA in Theater and English from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an MFA in Acting from the National Theater Conservatory.

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Tara lives in the North Bay with her husband and their Basset Hound, Whiskey.