sam has been a performer forever - they were known for turning doctor’s offices or grocery store checkouts into captive audiences as they recited the introduction to Beauty and the Beast they’d memorized off the VHS. they formally began performing at five in a show choir-style community group, leading to an interest in musical theater. sam furthered that interest in high school, being active in the international thespian society, performing in plays, working in stage management and production, and eventually being hired on to a production of Evil Dead: The Musical at Planet Hollywood.

as a first real hiring, it was a dream job. they started as a blood technician, working with the special effects team to make the ever-important blood effects go off without a hitch. there are few things as satisfying as the shrieks of delight from our splatter zone audiences - triggering actions and effects while precariously crammed underneath a table onstage becomes worth it.

after some time, they moved into a performance role. they were a swing actor, which meant they learned all four unique deadite roles as well as the three women’s roles. most often, sam played a deadite, the vulgar, spooky, singing and dancing zombies that taunted the audience pre-show and played haunted house with them throughout. when an actor had to step out of the show unexpectedly, sam moved into playing linda, the girlfriend of hero ash who gets her head chainsawed off - from one side of the blood effects to the other.

but as anyone in theater knows, the money is hardly ever enough and the hours were hard as they started college. after leaving evil dead, sam went into food service, but quickly found more performance opportunity. they started as a restaurant host at a rodeo-themed bar and grill, and sweet-talked their way into operating the mechanical bull that occupied a corner of the floor. as the bull operator, sam assisted hosts and showed off those glimmering customer service skills, but more importantly, they entertained the restaurant. whether it was for families at three in the afternoon or a bachelorette party at midnight, sam ensured people where having fun and looking cool in front of their friends (or absolutely trashing them, if a bro paid enough to sabotage his fellow bro). they also performed trick sets, including standing and surfing, ride backwards, riding side saddle, all while chit chatting with the guests hanging out and drinking. the bull attracted some of the most interesting people, from edc kids who tipped in cans of jack daniels lemonade to a man who told me stories over his plate of ribs about how him and his wife teach girls to squirt.

unfortunately, college is hard, and writing papers in your car at 7 am because you left work at 6 and have class at 8 isn’t sustainable, so sam moved their focus to a stronger school performance. they pursued a degree in theater at the university of nevada las vegas, who offers a conservatory-style training program at a BFA-level amount of credits. students chose a stage acting focus, screen acting focus, or a curriculum that balanced them both - sam opted for the theatrical route (which might be why they can only write this bio in third person, like it’s going to appear in a program). they regularly performed in plays in the mainstage season, and received a truly vast and comprehensive education in class. they realized a deep love of classics like moliere, chekov, and especially shakespeare; a penchant for accents, sounds, and vocal work; and finally accepted that they’ll probably always be more of a mover than they are a dancer. they can talk your ear off about theatrical history, and love relating it to pop culture today - time is flat circle and all that.

they also started becoming more and more active in the local theater scene of las vegas, nevada, falling in mainly with productions at the onyx theater. the onyx was, for a long time, behind an adult toy store, once functioning as an adult film theater. but after converting the projection room to a booth, a screen to a stage, and back offices into dressing rooms, a theater was born, sandwiched between two swingers clubs. the onyx put on weird, gory, gross-out, vulgar, off-the-wall productions, and while they didn’t know what to do with yet, sam felt the first sparks of inspiration for the experimental theater and performance art they wanted to create. in their community, they created rewarding, joyful productions, and had a great time being the weird, awkward kid, making mistakes and figuring things out.

reaching the end of their college career with hundreds of plays read, a desire to focus on comedy and live performance, and craving new, diverse ideas and people, sam knew they had to move. about a year later, they arrived in chicago, illinois, and it only took a month for them to get in drag for the first time. they spent days at the day job, nights in the nightclubs, and decided to sleep when they were dead. they also fit in classes in comedy and scriptwriting at the second city, open mic nights to see and tell jokes, and attended other sketch comedy shows.

that was, until 2020. with live performance the way they knew it on hold in america for the forseeable future, sam has had to turn back to their other talents, to give them the sunlight and water they’ve been lacking. they’re moving into 2021 with a focus on writing and independence - freelance essays and articles, scripts for projects that can be produced remotely, voice acting, and the debut of a new business, director on demand.

they’re hopeful about the future post coronavirus. they want their art and their talents to be a tool, building the beautiful, new world we’ve been able to envision on the other side of all this. they want to uplift the voices of the black community, to bring black trans issues to the forefront of people’s attention, to protect and improve the lives of women, and also laugh at weird memes sometimes and write about how they reflect our collective state of mind.

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