KIM MAXWELL, Founder & Principal

Kim Maxwell is the Founder/Executive Director of The Townies, Inc. She is a producer, director, writer, mother, teacher, wife, Founder/Principal at Kim Maxwell Studio and Creator/Producer of The Townies Podcast. She is Co-Founder of the Ojai Playwrights Conference, serving as Board Member and Director of its Youth Program for over 20-years. Kim is also Co-Founder and served as co-Artistic Director of Theater 150 for 11-years.

Kim’s transformative style of teaching has inspired absolute beginners and professional actors alike. With her compassionate guidance, students undertake the fulfilling and transformative process of discovering, developing and performing their own stories. From preteens to senior citizens, Kim’s students, over a thousand in number, have gathered in living rooms, theaters, and even detention centers throughout Los Angeles and Ventura Counties to share their stories and have their voices heard.

In 30 years of serving her community, Kim Maxwell has produced three successful theater companies, 32 stage productions, 28 fundraisers, 82 readings, 12 educational outreach programs, and more than 3,500 individual pieces of original material produced in over 150 workshop productions. In the last year she has raised thousands of dollars in scholarship money to “ensure a classroom that represents the great diversity of economic status, sexual orientation, race, and background that we see in our beloved 805 community.” Kim has also volunteered hundreds of hours to community organizations ranging from public and private schools, to multiple local non-profits, such as the Mixteco/Indigenous Community Organizing Project, MICOP.

Kim received a Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award from the City of Ojai in 2013 and was named the 2018 Visionary of the Year by the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO).

kim@kimmaxwellstudio.com