Sam is a theatre scholar, teacher, and interdisciplinary artist originally from Boise, Idaho. His work moves across theatre history, acting and actor training, dramaturgy, directing and new-play development, dialect coaching, sound design, and theatrical production. He currently serves as Lighting & Sound Supervisor and instructor in Otterbein University’s Department of Theatre & Dance, where he teaches Theatre History, Sound Design, and Sound Technology while mentoring student designers and technicians and supporting departmental productions.
Sam holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Arts from Ohio University, completed on the Scholar/Artist Theatre & Performance Studies track, an MFA in Acting from the University of Alabama, and a BA in Theatre Arts from Furman University. His scholarship focuses on the history and theory of acting, performance training and pedagogy, and the language artists use to understand and teach performance. His dissertation, A Critique of Truth-Centered Rhetoric in American Acting and New Language for Embodied Imagery, examines alternatives to truth-centered models of acting through questions of imagery, fiction, aesthetics, and embodied performance. He has presented his research at the Mid-America Theatre Conference and continues to develop this work through conference presentation, publication, teaching, and artistic practice.
As a proud theatre generalist, Sam’s professional and creative work has taken many forms. He’s worked as an actor, director, dramaturg, dialect coach, sound and lighting designer, technical director, production manager, and mask maker. His acting work has taken him throughout the United States and internationally, including performances Off-Broadway and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. His directing and new-play work has included staged productions, audio drama, dramaturgy, and the development of new theatrical work.
Sam’s interest in interdisciplinary practice began during his undergraduate education at Furman University, where he studied acting, design, stage management, directing, and theatre history. His training also took him abroad, including study in Shakespeare and classical performance in Stratford-upon-Avon and physical theatre and mask performance at Accademia dell’Arte in Arezzo, Italy. He later earned his MFA in Acting from the University of Alabama, where he also taught acting and introductory theatre and received the Marian Gallaway Award for Distinguished Graduate Acting.
A recurring theme throughout Sam’s work has been the question of who theatre is for and how artists create meaningful relationships with audiences beyond traditional theatrical spaces. Early in his professional career, he worked throughout the Southeast as a performer, designer, and technician, with projects ranging from a musical revue performed for incarcerated audiences in West Virginia to Shakespeare productions that used classical texts to interrogate contemporary questions of gender. These experiences helped shape his continuing interest in theatre as both an artistic practice and a way of creating connections across social, cultural, educational, and disciplinary boundaries.
His creative practice also extends beyond conventional stage performance. Sam has worked in radio sketch comedy, audio drama, dramatic readings, concert production, and theatrical design, and he has trained in the construction and performance of theatrical masks. He has taught workshops in mask construction and performance techniques and continues to be interested in how material objects, images, bodies, voices, and technologies shape theatrical meaning.
Sam is also Literary Manager and a founding member of Broomstick Theatre Co. in New York City, where he helps develop new work and supports emerging theatre artists through readings, workshops, and production. His work with Broomstick has also allowed him to help former students make early professional connections and gain a foothold in the New York theatre community.
Across his scholarship, teaching, and creative work, Sam is interested in the connections among areas of theatre that are too often treated separately. Whether examining the rhetoric of actor training, teaching theatre history, developing a new play, performing, or designing sound, he approaches theatre as an interdisciplinary practice in which history, theory, artistic technique, technology, and collaboration continually inform one another.