The performer’s latest show, Suitcase Show, features a collection of short stories packed into various suitcases.
And the "eclectic box set of surprises" will soon be opened up for audiences in the city this week for the Dunedin Arts Festival.
She and co-creator Ralph McCubbin Howell toured a lot and were "often taking strange things on aeroplanes", including a prop decapitated head.
"We often find ourselves having to explain ourselves at the border security desk."
This was one of the ideas that informed the framing of Suitcase Show, while the inspiration for the individual short stories had come from many different places.
Each suitcase was a "little window into a different world", some made from paper and cardboard while others used built-in electronics and an overhead projector.
The stories changed every five to 10 minutes and included a Gothic horror set in a town during winter, a sci-fi epic, one based on Chaucer’s The Pardoner’s Tale and a political comedy about a Russian oligarch meeting a "sticky end".
The term "suitcase show" referred to productions that were on a scale small enough to travel in suitcases - a term they were taking in a literal direction, Ms Smith said.
Performing from out of a suitcase was an affordable way to create and present their stories.
"It gives us the opportunity to play with a lot of ideas that we can’t afford to do on a main stage.
"It also means we can tour to places that don’t have big, fancy venues that can present that kind of work."
Suitcase Show is performing Friday and Saturday at the Allen Hall Theatre.
