Directing Reel
S. Maxwell Brown is a director, composer, and actor from New York. He is passionate about building community through the performing arts, developing stories that represent the full complexities and joys of the Black experience. His past productions, including satire and Afro-surrealist plays, were definitively eccentric and technically innovative. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater & Performance Studies from Yale University.
Maxwell's journey as a director began with a lively black box production of The Wiz during his sophomore year, cultivating a team of over 50 student artists for his debut project. Throughout his college career, he's developed several staged readings of original works (Pancho and the Brain & Black Boy Therapy!). Maxwell’s love for music, evident in his work as a composer and musical director, heavily influences his work as a director. He has composed music for several plays and films, ranging from nostalgic dramas (After Life) to satirical mockumentaries (CCC: Conflicted Cuties of Color). In 2024, he musically directed Shades of Yale, Yale's mission-based a cappella group dedicated to the Black tradition. Maxwell continued to practice his acting and playwriting at Yale, performing with MFA candidates of the David Geffen School of Drama and studying under influential professors, including James Bundy, Gregory Wallace, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. When not in the theater, Maxwell continues to build community as a DJ under the moniker SMACKS, mixing an eclectic catalog of hip-hop, house, and other forms of Black dance music.
Most recently, he worked as a directing intern for The Muny’s 106th season, assisting in their productions of Dreamgirls (dir. Robert Clater) and In the Heights (dir. William Carlos Angulo). Last November, he mounted the mixed-media hip-hop play PYG, or the Mis-Edumacation of Dorian Belle (by Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm) for his senior thesis in directing.
Check out his work below!