Smote This, A Comedy About God... and Other Serious $HT*

August 27 – October 24, 2026 Thomas Theatre

Suitability and Accessibility Director Notes Creative Team Cast The Venue Education Events

An encore of the hit solo show from Rodney Gardiner

Back by popular demand, this sharp and hilarious solo show follows actor Rodney Gardiner as he attempts to abandon God—no easy feat for a devoutly raised, undocumented Black boy growing up in tumultuous 1980s Miami. For young Rodney, dealing with racial unrest, an immigration crisis, and the drug war is just another Tuesday. Smote This spins an entertaining web of personal stories and hilarious tangents that land with equal parts heart and heat. OSF is thrilled to welcome back Rodney, who has riveted our audiences for years in everything from musicals to Shakespeare.

2026 Tickets!

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Prices start at $31

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Suitability Suggestions

This humorous, poignant piece about loss and growing up as a Caribbean Black immigrant contains profanity, sexual references, remembrances of being beaten as a child, and a comedic look at growing up in a very religious family. This play will be best suited for prepared students who are able to handle the content.

For additional content warnings regarding violence or graphic depictions that may be upsetting to some audience members, please see our Content Warnings page (may contain spoilers).

Accessibility

The Thomas Theatre is outfitted with an elevator to the theatre level.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is committed to accessibility. We recognize the needs of persons with disabilities and strive to make our facilities and productions accessible to all. Please visit our Accessibility page for details about 2025 programs and services as they develop.

Director’s Notes

A solo show has a unique strength within the landscape of live storytelling. For Smote This, a story centered on legacy, belonging, faith, and fatherhood, we get to experience Rodney Gardiner’s story told through the singular instrument that is his own voice and body. As Rodney embodies himself at various ages, his family members, and a constellation of other characters both biographical and fanciful, we watch a single actor embody the vast range of humanity—and in doing so, we are reminded that the full scope of the human experience is contained within each one of us.

As a director, it is my honor and joy to bring this production back to OSF. Not only because it was received so warmly by the community in 2024, but even more so for where our country is in 2026. Rodney moves us fluidly between the worlds of an LA comedy club and the Black American church, takes us to the Turks and Caicos Islands of his childhood, through the Miami of his adolescence, and into the world of the present time. He’s exploring his personal history as an undocumented immigrant with a chronically ill father and a mother who supported his family as a domestic worker, in the context of a national history grappling with immigration, the war on drugs, racial injustice, and police brutality. Today, in a time when history is actively being rewritten and erased, it is essential that we claim the truth of our individual and collective histories as Rodney does in this play.

—Raz Golden