June 8, 2026 • 49 mins
Happy Pride month from Wide Open! For more of your favorite LGBTQ+ content, check out the Outspoken Network from iHeartPodcasts.
This week, Ashlyn welcomes Tony winning director and choreographer Sam Pinkleton to the show. Sam has made a career out of bringing outrageous queer theatrics to the masses. At a time when queer and trans rights are in danger, Sam’s work proves that embracing your deepest, most unique self is the key to personal and communal joy. Ashlyn talks to Sam about the stunning rise of Oh, Mary!, his recent Tony nomination for Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the importance of not just chasing success—but chasing what you love.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of Wide Open. I'm your host,
Ashlin Harris, and I'm so excited to be here with
you all today. I have some exciting news. If you
didn't know this, I have a documentary that just came
out today called Game Changers, The Ashland Harris Story.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
It is live now June eighth.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I can't believe it's been It's been an exciting process
that I haven't really been able to talk about because
it's been in the works for quite some time now.
It's definitely going to be different than your typical sports documentary.
It really peels back the layers of who I am
and how I was raised and the different paths that
(00:48):
life took me through.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Since I was a kid.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
And it's very vulnerable, and it's very real, and there's
a lot of honesty and truth that comes comes from
really exposing the life you've walked. I think nowadays, especially
with social media, I think we always tried to show
the highlight reels of our life. And I think life
(01:12):
is complicated and it's hard, and you know, we make
mistakes and we learn from it, and we hold grief
and we have loss, and we have lessons and we
have to choose ourselves over and over again in these
hard seasons, and I think it really opens up a
(01:38):
lot of what it cost me mentally, physically and emotionally
chasing greatness. And you know, my hope is that anyone
who watches this documentary walks away feeling inspired to show
up for themselves, to really embrace every part of who
(01:58):
you are, and choose every single day to keep moving
forward even when the path isn't always easy.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I hope you're gentle.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I think you know, being honest and open and vulnerable,
I want to meet people in a safe space, and
that's the risk I'm willing to take by exposing my story,
and I'm proud of that bravery. I'm proud of that honesty.
I think it's a part of my healing. I think
it's a love letter to myself that I've worked really
(02:31):
really hard for this life and I've fallen short over
and over again, but I've always I always wake up
the next day and I choose myself so happy, pride,
enjoy every moment of this. And today I'm really really
excited to have a special guest who is a fundamental
(02:54):
part of the queer community. Sam Pinkleton, and today's episode
is really about what happens when you stop performing who
the world wants you to be and you start creating
from the weirdest, truest parts of yourself. Sam's story isn't
just about theater. It's definitely about originality, about resisting the
(03:18):
pressure to fit in all the time. It's about building
a career from instinct instead of approval. This conversation will
definitely feel less like tell me about your work and
more like how did you become someone brave enough to
make this work in the first place. And that's why
(03:42):
I'm really excited for you to listen to this episode
with Sam, because of course, he's a Tony Award winning
director and choreographer for some of the most inspiring, hot
cultured theater on Broadway. He completely redefine what comedy, queerness,
and storytelling can look like on stage with O Mary,
(04:06):
I think it's a beautiful thing to make work that's strange, specific, hilarious,
and deeply human. So today we're talking about creativity, identity, belonging, failure, queer, joy,
and what happens when you finally stop trying to fit
inside other people's expectations. This is Sam Pinkleton. Welcome to
(04:28):
Wide Open. All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode
of Wide Open. I'm your host, Ashlyn Harris, and I
have the very very special guest today, Sam Pinkleton. Welcome
(04:50):
to the show. You sweet human of a creator, legend,
handsome little hunk. You are so happy to I'm your
hype woman. For those of you who don't know, Sam
is a creative genius, I have to say before we
get too deep into it. Sophia, my partner, brought me
(05:12):
to Oh Mary at the beginning when Cole was on Broadway.
It was so magnificent. I the whole time was just like,
I can't believe this is fucking art, because this is
the lane I need to live in forever. Because you know,
I Sophia is a theater baby. We're always going to
(05:33):
shows that changed the way I moved in the world.
I was like, if we're going to be watching anything
theatrical or anything creative or anything on Broadway or in
a little nook or cranny of this world, I want
it to be that.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Oh that's very generous. I mean it did feel when
we moved to Broadway, it did feel like a prank,
like it felt like the gays were pulling a giant
prank on everyone.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Sam everything about you, I do, because people just don't
stumble into this kind of thing, like they see the
world differently, and I'm curious to like kind of rewind
back and figure out, like what were you like as
a kid, How did you move as a kid? Did
you always see the world in a different way, in
(06:18):
a colorful way and a magnet? Like you're a creative genius,
and I'm just curious, like was it always in you
or did you find it?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
That is such a generous question that I feel very
raw today, so I'm going to just like try to
stay in the center of the question. I grew up
in a very small town in southern Virginia. I was
an only child. I had parents who I'm going to
say did the best they could, and I was a
(06:50):
real lowner. I was like a kid with a room
full of books who was happy to have that there
were I think this is the story for so many
queer people, like there weren't really reflections in my life
of adult lives that seemed like anything that I would
ever really want or feel comfortable in. So whatever there
(07:12):
was inside of me, I kind of assumed it would
never get out. I kind of assumed that growing up
would be about figuring out how to flatten myself enough
to be one of the grown ups around me. And
that was really scary and sad. And I you know,
(07:34):
I mean I was gay as hell. Like I was
a gay child. We were all gay children, yes, Like
I look at my pictures of myself as a child
and I'm like, you're dressed like a You're in the
Wizard of Oz and you're like walking around on your
tippy toes diva, like the chick is up. It is.
But I went I went to a public arts high school,
(07:55):
which is an incredible combination of words, particularly in rural Virginia.
And from the first day of high school, it was
like wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, there's a whole another world.
Like everything that you thought would hold you back will
actually bring you closer to who you are.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
And that is a journey that I think so many people,
if they even get to make it, they make it
in adulthood, and so many don't have the privilege of
that journey. And I had it in high school. And
you know, I have a lot of crazy trauma from
growing up but I do not have high school trauma
because at my high school, like the popular kids were
(08:36):
the kids who were in Gods Spell yep. And so
I was really rescued by theater. I was like a
total theater nerd and was surrounded by artists and was
surrounded by homosexuals and was surrounded by weirdos, and I
(08:56):
the seed was planted very early. And I'll say, like,
I I'm lucky now at almost forty to you know,
a kind of work in a lot of different mediums,
but like, fundamentally I'm a theater person, Like I am
a show kid. That's what I love. I love making
live stuff. And that that seed was there really really early,
(09:19):
Like it was always theater. It wasn't I want to
make movies, I want to make TV, I want to
It was always theater. And frankly, you know it's it.
It means a lot to hear from you that you're
enthusiastic about my work and how how much queer shit
I'm making, fucking because I do think like, especially coming
(09:44):
back into theater after the pandemic, I came back in
with a very different approach to things, in a very
different perspective, and one of the big questions that I
came out in with, not to be cheesy as hell,
was like, how do I do this like fully as myself?
Like how do I intersect with this thing that I
love fully as myself and myself is gay as hell?
(10:07):
And what it has meant kind of without too much planning,
is like, you know, spending the last few years just
like really getting to work with a lot of queer,
iconoclastic geniuses, which has been a real gift, and it's
made me feel more like myself than I ever have.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And I want you to talk about that freedom because
it feels like such a sense of freedom and what
I think so many people live their lives chasing approval.
I think creative people eventually have to decide whether they're
willing to disappoint people. And I don't know if you
(10:47):
feel that, but when did you stop making work that
you thought people wanted and actually started to make work
that excites you? Because your creative process feels very deeply
different and personal.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
It is I mean I only know my own, so
it is. Yeah, But I'll say you know, I was
very I knew that I wanted to make theater. I
knew I wanted to work in New York. I was
a hustler and I spent all of my twenties saying
yes to absolutely everything. And that was a great strategy
to like make a life and occasionally make a living.
(11:26):
But if I'm being honest, I did a lot of
incredibly unsatisfying work. I did a lot of work that
I wasn't proud of. I did a lot a lot
of work that didn't feel very personal to me. And
it's because I was just like climbing, like I just
wanted to get gigs and I had to. Also I
didn't have any money. And I also, you know, I
lied about my age for a really long time because
(11:47):
I felt like I wouldn't be taken seriously as like
a leader if I was as young as I was,
and I like kind of like dressed myself down. I
like wore suit jackets through my twenties to be like
I'm an adult, Take me seriously, and it's you know,
it's it's all fake. Like that's all fake. And that
(12:09):
made me make work from a place of fear or
a place of wanting approval. And some of that work
I was proud of, and a lot of that work
you know got me where I am now. But I
think there was something about theater ending full stop right
(12:30):
like live performance just went away for over a year
that brought mortality in the front seat. And I know
it's not like a hot take to be like global
pandemic and we all realized we're going to die, but
it was a real slap in the face of like, wait,
why are you doing? Why are you like trying to
(12:50):
contort yourself into a version of what you think your
industry or an audience wants, Like that sucks, like death
could come at any minute, And so I kind of
tried to make a promise to myself that I wouldn't
do anything if I didn't like, fully feel like myself
inside of it. And that meant chase what's fun, not
(13:11):
what feels like it's going to be successful. When Cole
asked me to do Oh Mary, like, it was not
like we didn't get paid anything initially, like it was
a joyous thing with Cole, who I adore, who I've
known forever, and that was the impulse and it wasn't like, yeah,
this is going to be a thing, and of course
(13:31):
you know it it became what it has become, But
I really think I owe it to myself to learn
from that. I owe it to myself to be like way, wait,
wait wait wait. So like the giant thing that now
like a lot of people know me for was just
like came from making a thing with my friends the
way I want to. And frankly, I'm really experiencing surrender
(13:57):
right now because I directed the production of the Rocky
Horror Show that's on Broadway, and a thing about the
Rocky Horror Show. I don't know what your relationship with
it is, but I've spent like eight years working on it,
and the Rocky Horror Show is a thing that every
single person on the planet has something to say about.
(14:17):
Everyone has an opinion of it. Everyone has a belief
in how it should be done. Everyone is right, everyone
is in contradiction to the next person you talk to.
And so in agreeing to do it, I had this
moment of like, oh, someone's going to be upset, like
it's impossible to make a thing when this person said
(14:39):
it's supposed to be green, and this person said it's
supposed to be red. That's you can't do that. And
so I went into the process knowing there's no way
to make this thing that matters so much to so
many people. There's no way to make everyone happy, and
so all I can do is be kind to the
people that I'm making with making it with be honest
(15:01):
about where I'm at, be honest about what I know
and what I don't know, like try not to be
an asshole in the process, try to create it with
love towards the thing that it is and the people
who love it, and then like it's a cliche, but
then hand it over. And we started performances and a
lot of people went crazy for it, and certainly a
(15:24):
lot of people were like, oh my god. Sam Pinkleton
thought he was good when I saw Oh Mary, but
that guy sucks. And you know, it's like I'm a
pupil pleaser. It's hard. It's hard. It like finally, and
thank God for it. It was like, finally the thing
that made me be like, oh I pretend to be
someone who doesn't look at the internet. I say I'm not,
(15:44):
but of course I am. And with this show, I
was like, oh no, I have just become a person
who doesn't look and the joy of it has become
And I love saying this to the people that I
made it with because I feel it's so deeply and
it really moves me. I'm like, I know why we
made what we made, and I know why we made
(16:05):
it the way we did, and I'm so deeply proud
of that, and I would change nothing about it. And
that is the greatest feeling in the entire world. And
that is how I am able to sleep. And if
every single person who walked through the door was like
I love this so much and you're a genius and
I felt like I lied in the process or I
(16:27):
wasn't proud of what I made, it would be worse.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, I agree, totally agree with you.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
But that is a doozy of a lesson, it really is.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
And like, I'm you had so much success with Oh
Mary too. I imagine when you and Cole first started that,
did you ever expect it would be where it is today?
Like everyone playing the roles, these are iconic people playing
(16:57):
Mary and they want to be a part of like
what you did, what you built like that. I think
also you can't lose sight of that, Like it was
one of my brain was like melting as I was
watching Oh Mary, Like that was I was like, how
I've never seen anything like this in my life, and
(17:17):
I fucking love it. I just wanted more and more
and more, and I'm usually like halfway through, I'm like,
are we there yet?
Speaker 3 (17:26):
So yeah, oh my god, heart same. I just did
you know.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
It was gonna land like that? Or did you just
you fucking just rolled with it? Did anything surprise you?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
If if we had known, if we had had any
even the slightest hunch that, I mean, what has happened
to it now is ridiculous. But even if we had
a hunch that it was going to sell out or
move to Broadway, it would have been bad. I know
that for sure. I know that for sure. I have
gone into things being like, well, if we play our
(17:58):
cards right, yeah, and that is like, that is the
surest way to make something shitty because I think it
just like it it pollutes the water, like and I'm
not saying ambition is a bad thing, but ultimately, like
you have to just make the thing. And truly, I mean,
we tell the story all the time and I'm sure
(18:19):
people don't believe us, but like we just it felt
like we won that we got to make it. For
eight weeks, we never considered that someone could do it.
Other than Cole, not once not on it, Like it
didn't even make sense. It's like at the time it
was like, well, you wouldn't do a comedy special with
somebody who isn't the comedian. Yeah, And what happened downtown
(18:42):
was like, very very early, there was this feeling of like, oh,
something is happening. Like I've made shows that are hits.
It was like, this isn't a hit, this is like
a something else, and it was it continues to be
so like if you had told me a year ago
(19:03):
a that we would still be running and be that
Maya Rudolph would be in it, Maya I would be
like no, like we've already surpassed we surpassed our wildest
dreams literally years ago, so you kind of just have
to like buckle up and say yes and like not
be a jerk. There definitely were moments early on with
(19:25):
Cole and I where we would kind of squint at
each other and be like, I think it's going well,
but also we're both like terminally obsessive, and unfortunately we
are both wired to like only focus on the thing
that's going wrong. It's like, yes, like nine hundred and
ninety nine thousand people love it, but two people absolutely
(19:47):
hate it. Let's learn their name. Yeah, So you know,
we're we're always able to find something to not feeling about,
but it has I think that's also meant that we've
just kept working.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
And even I you know, I saw an interview with
with Maya who literally was like, this has changed my life,
Like I never like this role was for me, and
it opened up such a joy that she has an
experienced for a long time, someone who really wanted to go,
you know, into theater for a long time, but it
(20:24):
never was the right role, the right moment, at the
right time. And I, you know, I saw the interview
she was like, this was for me and it changed
my whole Like I love it. And now she's like
in and I mean that's she is a icon, Like
I wanted toot your own horn. That is fucking cool,
and like that's such a cool moment for our community.
(20:50):
For me, I'm so proud because so many people are
really really fearful to do this, to step into this,
the vulnerability of what could come, the repercussions, what people
might say, will it be canceled, will no one love it?
And I just love that you took like such a
(21:11):
bet on it, even rocky horror picture like all of it.
I love. I love because I love the way you
show up. And what I notice about your work, Sam,
is that you're not just comfortable with weirdness. You actually
celebrate it. You do you celebrate it, and I think
that's part of why people connect so much with you
(21:34):
through your work. It's unapologetically itself, which is so weird
to say. But you've said you've been drawn to weirdos
in so many interviews, and I'm curious what weird people like?
What do they understand about the world that everyone else
misses because you're seeing the world very differently and the
way it's cast it and the way it's portrayed, and
(21:57):
it's fucking a type of art no no one has
ever experienced.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Sorry, I'm geeking. Can you tell me?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
I know, I'm very I'm very I'm like, I'm like
trying to decide whether I want to like burst into tears,
are actually just like jump off camera and not come back.
I mean, you know, we're all weirdos, right, every single
one of us is a weirdo. Every single person is
a weirdo. Every single person has something in their jowy
that they don't want to talk about. And to me,
(22:25):
the the people that I'm most drawn to working with
are the people who are unafraid to show up with
everything they've got, which is contradictions and mess and bad
habits and like weird smells. And because you know, especially
because I make live performance, like I make a thing,
(22:48):
it's so old fashioned. It's so old fashioned to be like, hey,
leave your house, go to a place with other strangers,
and then be stuck there for a couple of hours.
Like that's sounds like it sucks, so just as like
a format, so like you know, we I want people
to have an experience. I want people to have a
(23:09):
good time. I want people to be surprised, and to me,
one of the ways to do that is to have
the thing that's happening on stage be people surprising themselves.
It is you know, you talk about Maya saying this
a dreams come true, and she said that to me
as well. And also Maya is a worker, and Maya
(23:29):
is a wild like like crazy hyphen it talent genius
who has all of these superpowers and she, like anyone,
can rarely get to use all of them at the
same time and something like Oh Mary, It's like it's
asking you to fire on all cylinders and that is
(23:51):
terrifying and that is exciting. And I think there's something
about that terror and that excitement that unlocks excitement for
the audience, right Rocky Horror, Like the whole way I
cast it was about getting people to do something that
they've never done before, you know, getting Juliette Lewis to
(24:12):
be in a Broadway musical and getting Luke Evans to
basically be naked. And I love it like gay as hell,
and and I think there's just there's a there's a
thing that like making live performance requires. It's like so nerdy,
but it also is it requires deep bravery on behalf
(24:33):
of the people who are actually on stage. And I
have the honor of facilitating and creating a space where
that bravery can exist like fully and without apology. Yes,
And I just think as audience members, like we feel that,
like we something special happens when you like are watching
(24:54):
Beyonce or you're at a Nicks game and you're like,
I'm feeling people at the height of their powers. I'm
in the room with people at the height of their powers.
And my job is harnessing weirdos to use your language
one of my favorite words, to operate at the height
(25:15):
of their powers, which is terrifying. Yeah, but when it hits,
there's nothing like it. And that is I think that
like impossible, kind of unspeakable thing of like, oh, it
was worth it to like go to midtown and sit
in a dark room for like a million dollars. You know,
occasionally it can be transcendent and I'm like addicted to
(25:38):
chasing that.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Stay tuned. I'll be back in just a moment. After
this brief message from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I don't know what you think, but you know, you
talk a lot a lot about you know, taking these
risks and the vulnerability. But why do you think audiences
are so hungry for this weird, strange specific work right now,
especially in this political climate where everyone's telling us to shrink,
everyone's telling us to do less, everyone's saying, oh, you're
(26:11):
not going to get this. You can't put that out there,
This isn't going to get picked up. And now you're seeing, well,
that's actually just not true, and people are.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Hungry for it.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And I'm curious, why do you think that is?
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I mean, very early on with Omary, especially when we
got to Broadway. You know, when we were downtown, it
was like, okay, it's like our brain dead gay friends,
like obviously they're going to have a good time at this.
But we got to Broadway and early on I looked
around and I was like, these people are on vacation
from Nebraska, and like they are screaming. They are screaming,
(26:45):
and it moved me so intensely because like it's it's
so basic. But I was like, right, everybody's going through it,
Like everybody is going through it in their own way,
Like we are going through it as a country, we
are going through it as a planet, we are going
through it in our micro communities. And also that is
all on top of just like having a regular bad day,
(27:06):
having your own shit. I think it is always good
to assume, especially in moments of conflict, that the person
that you are talking to has something going on that
you know nothing about, right, And so the theater is
this place where you go at the end of your day.
So I just want to assume that at the end
(27:28):
of people's day they want a release. That it feels
good to laugh, it feels good to be with people.
It's like ancient stuff. It's like why it feels good
to go to a liberty game yep, And it's very pure,
you know. So I know we are like living in
the era of people being like, in.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
These times it's important to laugh, but like, no, for real,
in these times it's important to laugh and frankly like
we are going through micro horrors and on a day
to day basis, And so I actually like, if we're experiencing,
(28:07):
if all of the culture we're experiencing be at theater,
be at movies, be at magazines, whatever, is also horrifically sad,
there will be nothing left in the tank.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, and we will self destruct. And actually, like we
especially like Weirdo's capital w we gotta we gotta keep
the tank filled, right, like we actually like needed to
go into battle. And the way I and many people
feel our tank is by laughing and doing stupid shit
and dancing and being together and like seeing comedy. You know,
(28:43):
I always say about Rocky Horror, uh, because often people
who are way less fun to talk to than you are.
Speaker 6 (28:50):
Like, how's this How's this show gonna land in this
fraught political time?
Speaker 3 (28:56):
And I'm like, I don't know. It's like, this is
your worst nightmare and look how fun it is.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Exactly like like relax, live a little in color, but
you know what it is, Sam, I think comedy often
reveals truth faster than drama.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Totally, totally yes. I also I'm looking. I'm sitting in
my little office here, and I have this note card
taped to my window that says the goal of the
cultural worker is to make the revolution irresistible. I love it,
and you know it is, and that that doesn't necessarily
mean that we have to be like only making things
(29:34):
about affordable healthcare. It's like get people to laugh and
a twirl and like throw glitter at them. Yes, and
like and and and also like pack the room with
the people that our government is denying the existence of,
(29:55):
like just make it impossible to see anything other than
the things that we are being told are destroying us
and in fact are the greatest humans and the greatest
stories that we as a culture have to offer.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
It's so true and it's so important, and I like,
I love that you are creating such influential stuff not
only for our queer community because it does mean so much,
but like for everyone to see us, like truly see us,
and I think what I can offer as someone who's
(30:31):
been a spectator and watched your work is queerness really
isn't something that you're necessarily explaining. It's something you're celebrating
through your work, and you don't always get that. So
when you remove your joy and your queerness and all, like,
what does queer Joy mean to you today?
Speaker 2 (30:54):
You know?
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I'm like, because I know this podcast is going to
be released during Pride and it's really important and I
want all my queer babies to go out and see
all these shows because it did melt my brain in
the best way. But I want to know, like you personally, Sam, like,
what does queer joy mean to you today?
Speaker 3 (31:15):
You know? I should have a better answer for this,
because it is a it is a combination of words
that I'm frequently assigned a thing that I'm really obsessed
with right now, and I think it's it's partially just
spending time with the shows that I'm making is for me.
How much identity is not a fixed point. How we
(31:38):
present ourselves, how we meet the world, how we look,
how we engage, how we have sex, it changes constantly, constantly, constantly,
And that means as as somebody who who's you know.
(31:59):
My work is for better or worse most of my life,
and I love it. I love what I do intensely.
And the thing I say always when I'm making something,
the thing I say to a cast, the thing I
say to a company, the thing I say to an
(32:19):
audience if I'm talking to them, is like, I just
want you to have a nice time. Like that's it.
I just want you to have a nice time. And
what my nice time looks like is different than what
your nice time looks like. And I make spaces where
I hope, I hope people have the capacity to surprise themselves,
people have the capacity to discover that they enjoyed something
(32:42):
that they didn't think they enjoyed. Right, It's like you
go to a restaurant and you're like, I hate this,
let me taste it. Oh wait, I love it. Yeah,
And that there is like, you know, there's like a
queerness to that. And it's also like it's a gradient. Right.
I always talk about with Rocky like don't dream it
be it, don't dream it be it is perhaps the greatest,
(33:05):
most kind of mythical expression of so called queer joy.
Don't dream it be it could mean I'm going to
change absolutely everything about my identity. And it also could
mean like I think I'm gonna wear eyeshadow for the
first time and like, yeah, and it makes you make
that face and that is that is a it's joyous,
(33:26):
but it also like might bring one a millimeter closer
to themselves. And I don't know, I keep saying this,
but like that's the that's the thing that I'm addicted to.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
What I will say to you is this, to be it,
you have to see it. So I'm going to follow
up on what you said. To be it, you have
to see it. And you are giving that to people,
whether they are queer or not or trying to figure
out where they fit into this world. I say this, Allen,
(34:01):
we can't imagine what is possible without seeing it through
the lens of someone else.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
And I do think.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Queer people develop creativity creativity differently because we have spent
a life imagining ourselves into existence. Yeah, that's right that
most people haven't had to do.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
That's right, that's right. And yeah, and we've made things
out of nothing like we've made we and I mean
that quite literally, like we have like there is the
lineage of queer artists who have like taken this and
made something beautiful out of it, like that's survival and
(34:44):
and that work is like so often like pilot light
for something else. And frankly, like to be clear, I mean,
I feel like I hesitate using words like queer joy
because I don't always know what they mean, and they
it's so high pressure that I don't want to mess
it up, you know, But like that joy does not
(35:06):
just extend to queer people, and like it is like uh,
like I think uh. I was in I was in
like a bodega the other day, and I was surrounded
by people who exclusively I thought were gonna beat me up.
I was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, like all of
these hymns are staring at me in a really way,
(35:29):
which you know can still sometimes happen in New York City,
and in the most amazing way. All of a sudden,
the bodega started playing Sylvester, like the gayest disco track
imaginable and it's I was truly like bodega gods smile
on me, yes, And then I watched everyone in the
(35:51):
bodega like start like bopping to the Sylvester song. And
I was like, the American people need to write an
open letter of things to our queer ancestors. YEP, for
getting us through moments exactly like this, exactly.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
I feel that in my bones.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
Stay tuned. I'll be back in just a moment after
this brief message from our sponsors.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
As we're celebrating.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Gay Pride Month, Pride Month, resistance, fighting for our rights,
our existence to be seen. Where do you feel, Sam,
Where do you feel most at home these days? I?
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Man, it's so cheesy, but like I feel you know
you're coming to me in a moment of high showbiz.
You know, I work on Broadway the Tony Awards during
like five days. It's like very cool, but it's also
like the Westminster Dog Show, respectfully, and like I don't
mean to minimize that part of the industry, but like
(36:59):
ALTI mentally the thing that I love is making stuff
like that is actually like the thing I love most
about directing is directing. Yeah, I last year I won
a Tony Award, which is a crazy thing to say,
but it did happen. And the next day I started
(37:22):
rehearsal for a one person show in a one hundred
seed theater. Downtown with like actual trash on the floor,
And that is how I came up in theater, and
it is where I am the most comfortable, and it
meant everything. It meant everything to be in this like
(37:43):
amazing technicolor whirlwind of my dreams coming true. That's like
beautiful but also maybe not entirely real to be like wait, wait, wait,
wait wait, nope, you actually are just going to make
something in a basement and frankly like that show, which
is an amazing show called Can I Be frank by
a writer comedian Morgan Bassicus, a show that engages very
(38:06):
deeply with questions of like queer, ancestry and lineage and joy.
That's just back right now. And I don't say that
just as a plug. I say that to answer the
question when you're like, where do you feel the most comfortable?
I feel the most comfortable standing in the back of
that tiny theater, that tiny, hot, uncomfortable theater, watching Morgan
(38:31):
do this electric thing that only Morgan can do for
an audience of people that is small enough that everyone
can actually hear the way the other people laugh, Like
there's something amazing about sitting in a Broadway theater because
you feel like you're a part of a title wave.
But in a tiny room like the room we started Omerion,
you actually learn the personalities of the people sitting around you.
(38:53):
There's like one hundred and twenty people in the room,
So I never want to get away from that. And
like in the moments when I get really obsessed with
the showbiz part of things, which is a demon that
lives inside of me and perhaps all of us, I
really have to be tethered to like no, no, no.
You like making things in dark rooms, which is a
(39:15):
deeply unglamorous thing. It's so unglamorous, Like I just want
to be in sweatpants meeting stuff out with people.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
You know, I love that so much about you because
and I'm really just getting to know you through you know,
I've seen your craft and I've really enjoyed it. But
even hearing you talk, what I love is you're not
chasing success. You're not chasing the trophies, You're not chasing
(39:43):
this limelight. You're just you're chasing the process. You're chasing progress.
You're really trying to mold something that's different. And I
think that is so vulnerable, that is so brave. That
is spaces when people get to be at where you know,
I like to call it where the air is very
(40:05):
thin at the top.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Yeah, you move.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Success makes you move differently, right, it makes you move differently,
And I imagine you've felt it at times, but you
continue to stay grounded and true to what your work
is doing and how it's impacting people. And I think
that is so important, especially during Pride. And I want
this last question to and because I love the way
(40:31):
you use weirdos for the person listening to this podcast
who feels like they're too much, who feel who feels
too different, too weird, for the room they're in, what
would you tell them? Because not everyone gets to come
and see your work. That's the hard part about theater, right,
you have to have access, you have to have some
(40:51):
sort of privilege. It's not cheap, it's hard to do.
New York is expensive place to be to visit. Like,
I'm curious like you, because we said at the middle
of the show, seeing is believing you know, what is capable,
what you're capable of, what is you know. It's a
process of becoming. But like, what would you tell these
(41:13):
little weirdos in the small nooks and crannies we grew
up in who do feel too much, who feel too different,
Especially in a moment of pride, that is really important
that we show up for those kids who don't see
themselves all the time.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
I mean, I think I wasted a lot of time
from childhood but also through my twenties and even my
early thirties thinking about how the air was going to
be at the top, I love the thin air.
Speaker 6 (41:46):
Thing like, I.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Was so obsessed with where I was going that I
didn't spend a lot of time being where I was.
And in fact, because I have had the great privilege
of a real experience of success in my totally niche
and nerdy ass industry, to be clear, doing what I
(42:10):
do feels exactly like what it felt like making a
play for zero dollars when I was sixteen. Exactly. It
feels exactly the same, the good parts, it's the same
kind of good, it's the same kind of bad. I
was staying up then worrying about the same things that
I'm worrying about now. I in some ways long for
(42:35):
the time when I was making things without money or
pressure or eyes on it. Uh, And I like, I
don't know, I just like I think that.
Speaker 6 (42:49):
It does.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
I think there's a thing and I'm talking especially about theater,
like that's what I do. Like, I meet so many
amazing theater makers across the country and around the world
who were like, if only I could get to New York,
if only I was doing broad Way, if only I
could see Broadway. And I'm like, it's the same thing.
Like if I plant a tomato in the middle of
New York City, that is no different than planting a
tomato in a trailer park in Colorado. Like you're still
(43:13):
gonna have a tomato, You're still gonna enjoy gardening. It's
still gonna be delicious when you eat it. And I
think that there's something that you know, like, obviously Broadway
is amazing, but it also is really exclusive. And I wish,
especially for people who have a curiosity about theater, about
(43:33):
the arts, that that they're that loving the one you're
with could be enough that like, you know, I took
for granted the access to art that I had even
in the like tiny place where I grew up, because
I was just like, it's not New York. It made
me a meani man, Like that sucks. And and you
(43:55):
know the other thing that I'm still I'm still learning
and I'm sharpening, and I hope I keep learning. I
hope I'm not done learning. My goodness. Uh, it's like
this is maybe a dangerous way to say this, but
like if a thing feels good, that might mean that
it's good. You know, like if if you're enjoying being
(44:15):
with a group of people, if you're enjoying doing a thing,
even if, like you spent your whole life telling yourself
that you wanted to do something else or be with
someone else, like maybe it just feels good. Like maybe
that's like those cues we have to listen to. Like
I ignored cues for a long time because they did not
feel in line with something that I created in my
imagination about where I needed to be. No, I like
(44:39):
they they that, Like that is the thing that I
have worked the hardest to listen to. Is actually our
most animal instinct, which is.
Speaker 6 (44:50):
Like pleasure like pain, pleasure pain like follow pleasure, like
follow pleasure with abandon as long as you're not harming
other people in the process, like.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
We we say in Rocky Horror, give yourself over to
absolute pleasure. And that is that that trail, like keeping
your nose on the joy trail, which is not my quote.
I think that quote is. I think that quote is
Buffy Saint Marie actually, but like keep your nose on
(45:24):
the joy trail seriously, like one thing at a time.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
And what I'll say to that.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Is this, the things that we're taught to hide, especially
as kids who move differently, are very often the things
that make us extraordinary.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Of course I say that all the time in rehearsal.
I'm like, we're going to turn that scar into a star.
That like that is that is? That is absolutely it, It's
and it's it's the joy of my lifetime to get
to like do that on this crazy scale. It's my
whole you've described my job to me.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
Yeah, and it's powerful because you teach people that the
goal isn't to fit in ah. It invites us all
to feel like we don't have to move this way
and fall in line.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
It's almost like fuck it.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
I want to live a colorful life. I want to
have this creative imagination where I don't have to tone
it back to fit into this box where I have
to fall in line and have a suit and tie
and have a corporate job and have a family. Like,
fuck that I want to live, Yeah, I want to
live an extraordinary life where fuck, I make mistakes and
(46:41):
I figure it out and I like, have this beautiful,
colorful life that is so meaningful. And I feel like
it's so hard for people. It's so hard for people
to see, but when they see their work, it invites
them to see color in a way that is magical.
And I'm thankful for that. And I'm thankful for your work.
(47:01):
And I know our queer community is thankful for your work.
And I'm I really appreciate you coming on and being
like so open and vulnerable about it because it's it
is important. And I hope all the listeners and people
viewing this to go out and watch, you know, watch
your work, because it's magnificent.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
It's extraordinary.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
It's it's just so driven by purpose, and it moves
our culture and our queerness forward. And it's a fucking risk, Sam,
and you do it anyways, You fucking do it anyways.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
So thank you.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
Thanks for being so generous and awesome. I wish that
we could talk for an hour every single day.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Right, same but happy pride, I happy pride.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
Oh my god, we're gonna be so tired in thirty days.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, it's gonna be.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
I've got plenty of the year to or just sleep
a yeah, I love it. Well, thank you so much
for being on, and everyone go out please if you haven't, uh,
just fucking watch his work because.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
It is it's polluting the earth right now. It's too
many places.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
It's so good. It's just so good, and I can't like.
It's the best. It's the best, it's the best. It's
the best.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
So thank you and thanks for being here, thanks for
being Wide Open, Thanks everyone for tuning into another episode,
and we'll see you next week. Sam, thank you so
much for coming on this week's episode. What I take
away from this conversation and what I'll say that's so
important is the things we're actually taught to hide are
(48:33):
often the very things that make us extraordinary. The goal
isn't always to fit in. The goal is to become
more fully yourself. That's exactly what Sam's work invites us
all to do. Thank you so much for listening, thank
you for tuning into Wide Open, and we'll see you
next week on seven
Welcome back to another episode of Wide Open. I'm your host,
Ashlin Harris, and I'm so excited to be here with
you all today. I have some exciting news. If you
didn't know this, I have a documentary that just came
out today called Game Changers, The Ashland Harris Story.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
It is live now June eighth.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I can't believe it's been It's been an exciting process
that I haven't really been able to talk about because
it's been in the works for quite some time now.
It's definitely going to be different than your typical sports documentary.
It really peels back the layers of who I am
and how I was raised and the different paths that
(00:48):
life took me through.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Since I was a kid.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
And it's very vulnerable, and it's very real, and there's
a lot of honesty and truth that comes comes from
really exposing the life you've walked. I think nowadays, especially
with social media, I think we always tried to show
the highlight reels of our life. And I think life
(01:12):
is complicated and it's hard, and you know, we make
mistakes and we learn from it, and we hold grief
and we have loss, and we have lessons and we
have to choose ourselves over and over again in these
hard seasons, and I think it really opens up a
(01:38):
lot of what it cost me mentally, physically and emotionally
chasing greatness. And you know, my hope is that anyone
who watches this documentary walks away feeling inspired to show
up for themselves, to really embrace every part of who
(01:58):
you are, and choose every single day to keep moving
forward even when the path isn't always easy.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I hope you're gentle.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I think you know, being honest and open and vulnerable,
I want to meet people in a safe space, and
that's the risk I'm willing to take by exposing my story,
and I'm proud of that bravery. I'm proud of that honesty.
I think it's a part of my healing. I think
it's a love letter to myself that I've worked really
(02:31):
really hard for this life and I've fallen short over
and over again, but I've always I always wake up
the next day and I choose myself so happy, pride,
enjoy every moment of this. And today I'm really really
excited to have a special guest who is a fundamental
(02:54):
part of the queer community. Sam Pinkleton, and today's episode
is really about what happens when you stop performing who
the world wants you to be and you start creating
from the weirdest, truest parts of yourself. Sam's story isn't
just about theater. It's definitely about originality, about resisting the
(03:18):
pressure to fit in all the time. It's about building
a career from instinct instead of approval. This conversation will
definitely feel less like tell me about your work and
more like how did you become someone brave enough to
make this work in the first place. And that's why
(03:42):
I'm really excited for you to listen to this episode
with Sam, because of course, he's a Tony Award winning
director and choreographer for some of the most inspiring, hot
cultured theater on Broadway. He completely redefine what comedy, queerness,
and storytelling can look like on stage with O Mary,
(04:06):
I think it's a beautiful thing to make work that's strange, specific, hilarious,
and deeply human. So today we're talking about creativity, identity, belonging, failure, queer, joy,
and what happens when you finally stop trying to fit
inside other people's expectations. This is Sam Pinkleton. Welcome to
(04:28):
Wide Open. All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode
of Wide Open. I'm your host, Ashlyn Harris, and I
have the very very special guest today, Sam Pinkleton. Welcome
(04:50):
to the show. You sweet human of a creator, legend,
handsome little hunk. You are so happy to I'm your
hype woman. For those of you who don't know, Sam
is a creative genius, I have to say before we
get too deep into it. Sophia, my partner, brought me
(05:12):
to Oh Mary at the beginning when Cole was on Broadway.
It was so magnificent. I the whole time was just like,
I can't believe this is fucking art, because this is
the lane I need to live in forever. Because you know,
I Sophia is a theater baby. We're always going to
(05:33):
shows that changed the way I moved in the world.
I was like, if we're going to be watching anything
theatrical or anything creative or anything on Broadway or in
a little nook or cranny of this world, I want
it to be that.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Oh that's very generous. I mean it did feel when
we moved to Broadway, it did feel like a prank,
like it felt like the gays were pulling a giant
prank on everyone.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Sam everything about you, I do, because people just don't
stumble into this kind of thing, like they see the
world differently, and I'm curious to like kind of rewind
back and figure out, like what were you like as
a kid, How did you move as a kid? Did
you always see the world in a different way, in
(06:18):
a colorful way and a magnet? Like you're a creative genius,
and I'm just curious, like was it always in you
or did you find it?
Speaker 3 (06:27):
That is such a generous question that I feel very
raw today, so I'm going to just like try to
stay in the center of the question. I grew up
in a very small town in southern Virginia. I was
an only child. I had parents who I'm going to
say did the best they could, and I was a
(06:50):
real lowner. I was like a kid with a room
full of books who was happy to have that there
were I think this is the story for so many
queer people, like there weren't really reflections in my life
of adult lives that seemed like anything that I would
ever really want or feel comfortable in. So whatever there
(07:12):
was inside of me, I kind of assumed it would
never get out. I kind of assumed that growing up
would be about figuring out how to flatten myself enough
to be one of the grown ups around me. And
that was really scary and sad. And I you know,
(07:34):
I mean I was gay as hell. Like I was
a gay child. We were all gay children, yes, Like
I look at my pictures of myself as a child
and I'm like, you're dressed like a You're in the
Wizard of Oz and you're like walking around on your
tippy toes diva, like the chick is up. It is.
But I went I went to a public arts high school,
(07:55):
which is an incredible combination of words, particularly in rural Virginia.
And from the first day of high school, it was
like wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, there's a whole another world.
Like everything that you thought would hold you back will
actually bring you closer to who you are.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
And that is a journey that I think so many people,
if they even get to make it, they make it
in adulthood, and so many don't have the privilege of
that journey. And I had it in high school. And
you know, I have a lot of crazy trauma from
growing up but I do not have high school trauma
because at my high school, like the popular kids were
(08:36):
the kids who were in Gods Spell yep. And so
I was really rescued by theater. I was like a
total theater nerd and was surrounded by artists and was
surrounded by homosexuals and was surrounded by weirdos, and I
(08:56):
the seed was planted very early. And I'll say, like,
I I'm lucky now at almost forty to you know,
a kind of work in a lot of different mediums,
but like, fundamentally I'm a theater person, Like I am
a show kid. That's what I love. I love making
live stuff. And that that seed was there really really early,
(09:19):
Like it was always theater. It wasn't I want to
make movies, I want to make TV, I want to
It was always theater. And frankly, you know it's it.
It means a lot to hear from you that you're
enthusiastic about my work and how how much queer shit
I'm making, fucking because I do think like, especially coming
(09:44):
back into theater after the pandemic, I came back in
with a very different approach to things, in a very
different perspective, and one of the big questions that I
came out in with, not to be cheesy as hell,
was like, how do I do this like fully as myself?
Like how do I intersect with this thing that I
love fully as myself and myself is gay as hell?
(10:07):
And what it has meant kind of without too much planning,
is like, you know, spending the last few years just
like really getting to work with a lot of queer,
iconoclastic geniuses, which has been a real gift, and it's
made me feel more like myself than I ever have.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
And I want you to talk about that freedom because
it feels like such a sense of freedom and what
I think so many people live their lives chasing approval.
I think creative people eventually have to decide whether they're
willing to disappoint people. And I don't know if you
(10:47):
feel that, but when did you stop making work that
you thought people wanted and actually started to make work
that excites you? Because your creative process feels very deeply
different and personal.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
It is I mean I only know my own, so
it is. Yeah, But I'll say you know, I was
very I knew that I wanted to make theater. I
knew I wanted to work in New York. I was
a hustler and I spent all of my twenties saying
yes to absolutely everything. And that was a great strategy
to like make a life and occasionally make a living.
(11:26):
But if I'm being honest, I did a lot of
incredibly unsatisfying work. I did a lot of work that
I wasn't proud of. I did a lot a lot
of work that didn't feel very personal to me. And
it's because I was just like climbing, like I just
wanted to get gigs and I had to. Also I
didn't have any money. And I also, you know, I
lied about my age for a really long time because
(11:47):
I felt like I wouldn't be taken seriously as like
a leader if I was as young as I was,
and I like kind of like dressed myself down. I
like wore suit jackets through my twenties to be like
I'm an adult, Take me seriously, and it's you know,
it's it's all fake. Like that's all fake. And that
(12:09):
made me make work from a place of fear or
a place of wanting approval. And some of that work
I was proud of, and a lot of that work
you know got me where I am now. But I
think there was something about theater ending full stop right
(12:30):
like live performance just went away for over a year
that brought mortality in the front seat. And I know
it's not like a hot take to be like global
pandemic and we all realized we're going to die, but
it was a real slap in the face of like, wait,
why are you doing? Why are you like trying to
(12:50):
contort yourself into a version of what you think your
industry or an audience wants, Like that sucks, like death
could come at any minute, And so I kind of
tried to make a promise to myself that I wouldn't
do anything if I didn't like, fully feel like myself
inside of it. And that meant chase what's fun, not
(13:11):
what feels like it's going to be successful. When Cole
asked me to do Oh Mary, like, it was not
like we didn't get paid anything initially, like it was
a joyous thing with Cole, who I adore, who I've
known forever, and that was the impulse and it wasn't like, yeah,
this is going to be a thing, and of course
(13:31):
you know it it became what it has become, But
I really think I owe it to myself to learn
from that. I owe it to myself to be like way, wait,
wait wait wait. So like the giant thing that now
like a lot of people know me for was just
like came from making a thing with my friends the
way I want to. And frankly, I'm really experiencing surrender
(13:57):
right now because I directed the production of the Rocky
Horror Show that's on Broadway, and a thing about the
Rocky Horror Show. I don't know what your relationship with
it is, but I've spent like eight years working on it,
and the Rocky Horror Show is a thing that every
single person on the planet has something to say about.
(14:17):
Everyone has an opinion of it. Everyone has a belief
in how it should be done. Everyone is right, everyone
is in contradiction to the next person you talk to.
And so in agreeing to do it, I had this
moment of like, oh, someone's going to be upset, like
it's impossible to make a thing when this person said
(14:39):
it's supposed to be green, and this person said it's
supposed to be red. That's you can't do that. And
so I went into the process knowing there's no way
to make this thing that matters so much to so
many people. There's no way to make everyone happy, and
so all I can do is be kind to the
people that I'm making with making it with be honest
(15:01):
about where I'm at, be honest about what I know
and what I don't know, like try not to be
an asshole in the process, try to create it with
love towards the thing that it is and the people
who love it, and then like it's a cliche, but
then hand it over. And we started performances and a
lot of people went crazy for it, and certainly a
(15:24):
lot of people were like, oh my god. Sam Pinkleton
thought he was good when I saw Oh Mary, but
that guy sucks. And you know, it's like I'm a
pupil pleaser. It's hard. It's hard. It like finally, and
thank God for it. It was like, finally the thing
that made me be like, oh I pretend to be
someone who doesn't look at the internet. I say I'm not,
(15:44):
but of course I am. And with this show, I
was like, oh no, I have just become a person
who doesn't look and the joy of it has become
And I love saying this to the people that I
made it with because I feel it's so deeply and
it really moves me. I'm like, I know why we
made what we made, and I know why we made
(16:05):
it the way we did, and I'm so deeply proud
of that, and I would change nothing about it. And
that is the greatest feeling in the entire world. And
that is how I am able to sleep. And if
every single person who walked through the door was like
I love this so much and you're a genius and
I felt like I lied in the process or I
(16:27):
wasn't proud of what I made, it would be worse.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, I agree, totally agree with you.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
But that is a doozy of a lesson, it really is.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
And like, I'm you had so much success with Oh
Mary too. I imagine when you and Cole first started that,
did you ever expect it would be where it is today?
Like everyone playing the roles, these are iconic people playing
(16:57):
Mary and they want to be a part of like
what you did, what you built like that. I think
also you can't lose sight of that, Like it was
one of my brain was like melting as I was
watching Oh Mary, Like that was I was like, how
I've never seen anything like this in my life, and
(17:17):
I fucking love it. I just wanted more and more
and more, and I'm usually like halfway through, I'm like,
are we there yet?
Speaker 3 (17:26):
So yeah, oh my god, heart same. I just did
you know.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
It was gonna land like that? Or did you just
you fucking just rolled with it? Did anything surprise you?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
If if we had known, if we had had any
even the slightest hunch that, I mean, what has happened
to it now is ridiculous. But even if we had
a hunch that it was going to sell out or
move to Broadway, it would have been bad. I know
that for sure. I know that for sure. I have
gone into things being like, well, if we play our
(17:58):
cards right, yeah, and that is like, that is the
surest way to make something shitty because I think it
just like it it pollutes the water, like and I'm
not saying ambition is a bad thing, but ultimately, like
you have to just make the thing. And truly, I mean,
we tell the story all the time and I'm sure
(18:19):
people don't believe us, but like we just it felt
like we won that we got to make it. For
eight weeks, we never considered that someone could do it.
Other than Cole, not once not on it, Like it
didn't even make sense. It's like at the time it
was like, well, you wouldn't do a comedy special with
somebody who isn't the comedian. Yeah, And what happened downtown
(18:42):
was like, very very early, there was this feeling of like, oh,
something is happening. Like I've made shows that are hits.
It was like, this isn't a hit, this is like
a something else, and it was it continues to be
so like if you had told me a year ago
(19:03):
a that we would still be running and be that
Maya Rudolph would be in it, Maya I would be
like no, like we've already surpassed we surpassed our wildest
dreams literally years ago, so you kind of just have
to like buckle up and say yes and like not
be a jerk. There definitely were moments early on with
(19:25):
Cole and I where we would kind of squint at
each other and be like, I think it's going well,
but also we're both like terminally obsessive, and unfortunately we
are both wired to like only focus on the thing
that's going wrong. It's like, yes, like nine hundred and
ninety nine thousand people love it, but two people absolutely
(19:47):
hate it. Let's learn their name. Yeah, So you know,
we're we're always able to find something to not feeling about,
but it has I think that's also meant that we've
just kept working.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
And even I you know, I saw an interview with
with Maya who literally was like, this has changed my life,
Like I never like this role was for me, and
it opened up such a joy that she has an
experienced for a long time, someone who really wanted to go,
you know, into theater for a long time, but it
(20:24):
never was the right role, the right moment, at the
right time. And I, you know, I saw the interview
she was like, this was for me and it changed
my whole Like I love it. And now she's like
in and I mean that's she is a icon, Like
I wanted toot your own horn. That is fucking cool,
and like that's such a cool moment for our community.
(20:50):
For me, I'm so proud because so many people are
really really fearful to do this, to step into this,
the vulnerability of what could come, the repercussions, what people
might say, will it be canceled, will no one love it?
And I just love that you took like such a
(21:11):
bet on it, even rocky horror picture like all of it.
I love. I love because I love the way you
show up. And what I notice about your work, Sam,
is that you're not just comfortable with weirdness. You actually
celebrate it. You do you celebrate it, and I think
that's part of why people connect so much with you
(21:34):
through your work. It's unapologetically itself, which is so weird
to say. But you've said you've been drawn to weirdos
in so many interviews, and I'm curious what weird people like?
What do they understand about the world that everyone else
misses because you're seeing the world very differently and the
way it's cast it and the way it's portrayed, and
(21:57):
it's fucking a type of art no no one has
ever experienced.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Sorry, I'm geeking. Can you tell me?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
I know, I'm very I'm very I'm like, I'm like
trying to decide whether I want to like burst into tears,
are actually just like jump off camera and not come back.
I mean, you know, we're all weirdos, right, every single
one of us is a weirdo. Every single person is
a weirdo. Every single person has something in their jowy
that they don't want to talk about. And to me,
(22:25):
the the people that I'm most drawn to working with
are the people who are unafraid to show up with
everything they've got, which is contradictions and mess and bad
habits and like weird smells. And because you know, especially
because I make live performance, like I make a thing,
(22:48):
it's so old fashioned. It's so old fashioned to be like, hey,
leave your house, go to a place with other strangers,
and then be stuck there for a couple of hours.
Like that's sounds like it sucks, so just as like
a format, so like you know, we I want people
to have an experience. I want people to have a
(23:09):
good time. I want people to be surprised, and to me,
one of the ways to do that is to have
the thing that's happening on stage be people surprising themselves.
It is you know, you talk about Maya saying this
a dreams come true, and she said that to me
as well. And also Maya is a worker, and Maya
(23:29):
is a wild like like crazy hyphen it talent genius
who has all of these superpowers and she, like anyone,
can rarely get to use all of them at the
same time and something like Oh Mary, It's like it's
asking you to fire on all cylinders and that is
(23:51):
terrifying and that is exciting. And I think there's something
about that terror and that excitement that unlocks excitement for
the audience, right Rocky Horror, Like the whole way I
cast it was about getting people to do something that
they've never done before, you know, getting Juliette Lewis to
(24:12):
be in a Broadway musical and getting Luke Evans to
basically be naked. And I love it like gay as hell,
and and I think there's just there's a there's a
thing that like making live performance requires. It's like so nerdy,
but it also is it requires deep bravery on behalf
(24:33):
of the people who are actually on stage. And I
have the honor of facilitating and creating a space where
that bravery can exist like fully and without apology. Yes,
And I just think as audience members, like we feel that,
like we something special happens when you like are watching
(24:54):
Beyonce or you're at a Nicks game and you're like,
I'm feeling people at the height of their powers. I'm
in the room with people at the height of their powers.
And my job is harnessing weirdos to use your language
one of my favorite words, to operate at the height
(25:15):
of their powers, which is terrifying. Yeah, but when it hits,
there's nothing like it. And that is I think that
like impossible, kind of unspeakable thing of like, oh, it
was worth it to like go to midtown and sit
in a dark room for like a million dollars. You know,
occasionally it can be transcendent and I'm like addicted to
(25:38):
chasing that.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Stay tuned. I'll be back in just a moment. After
this brief message from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I don't know what you think, but you know, you
talk a lot a lot about you know, taking these
risks and the vulnerability. But why do you think audiences
are so hungry for this weird, strange specific work right now,
especially in this political climate where everyone's telling us to shrink,
everyone's telling us to do less, everyone's saying, oh, you're
(26:11):
not going to get this. You can't put that out there,
This isn't going to get picked up. And now you're seeing, well,
that's actually just not true, and people are.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Hungry for it.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And I'm curious, why do you think that is?
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I mean, very early on with Omary, especially when we
got to Broadway. You know, when we were downtown, it
was like, okay, it's like our brain dead gay friends,
like obviously they're going to have a good time at this.
But we got to Broadway and early on I looked
around and I was like, these people are on vacation
from Nebraska, and like they are screaming. They are screaming,
(26:45):
and it moved me so intensely because like it's it's
so basic. But I was like, right, everybody's going through it,
Like everybody is going through it in their own way,
Like we are going through it as a country, we
are going through it as a planet, we are going
through it in our micro communities. And also that is
all on top of just like having a regular bad day,
(27:06):
having your own shit. I think it is always good
to assume, especially in moments of conflict, that the person
that you are talking to has something going on that
you know nothing about, right, And so the theater is
this place where you go at the end of your day.
So I just want to assume that at the end
(27:28):
of people's day they want a release. That it feels
good to laugh, it feels good to be with people.
It's like ancient stuff. It's like why it feels good
to go to a liberty game yep, And it's very pure,
you know. So I know we are like living in
the era of people being like, in.
Speaker 5 (27:47):
These times it's important to laugh, but like, no, for real,
in these times it's important to laugh and frankly like
we are going through micro horrors and on a day
to day basis, And so I actually like, if we're experiencing,
(28:07):
if all of the culture we're experiencing be at theater,
be at movies, be at magazines, whatever, is also horrifically sad,
there will be nothing left in the tank.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, and we will self destruct. And actually, like we
especially like Weirdo's capital w we gotta we gotta keep
the tank filled, right, like we actually like needed to
go into battle. And the way I and many people
feel our tank is by laughing and doing stupid shit
and dancing and being together and like seeing comedy. You know,
(28:43):
I always say about Rocky Horror, uh, because often people
who are way less fun to talk to than you are.
Speaker 6 (28:50):
Like, how's this How's this show gonna land in this
fraught political time?
Speaker 3 (28:56):
And I'm like, I don't know. It's like, this is
your worst nightmare and look how fun it is.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Exactly like like relax, live a little in color, but
you know what it is, Sam, I think comedy often
reveals truth faster than drama.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Totally, totally yes. I also I'm looking. I'm sitting in
my little office here, and I have this note card
taped to my window that says the goal of the
cultural worker is to make the revolution irresistible. I love it,
and you know it is, and that that doesn't necessarily
mean that we have to be like only making things
(29:34):
about affordable healthcare. It's like get people to laugh and
a twirl and like throw glitter at them. Yes, and
like and and and also like pack the room with
the people that our government is denying the existence of,
(29:55):
like just make it impossible to see anything other than
the things that we are being told are destroying us
and in fact are the greatest humans and the greatest
stories that we as a culture have to offer.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
It's so true and it's so important, and I like,
I love that you are creating such influential stuff not
only for our queer community because it does mean so much,
but like for everyone to see us, like truly see us,
and I think what I can offer as someone who's
(30:31):
been a spectator and watched your work is queerness really
isn't something that you're necessarily explaining. It's something you're celebrating
through your work, and you don't always get that. So
when you remove your joy and your queerness and all, like,
what does queer Joy mean to you today?
Speaker 2 (30:54):
You know?
Speaker 1 (30:54):
I'm like, because I know this podcast is going to
be released during Pride and it's really important and I
want all my queer babies to go out and see
all these shows because it did melt my brain in
the best way. But I want to know, like you personally, Sam, like,
what does queer joy mean to you today?
Speaker 3 (31:15):
You know? I should have a better answer for this,
because it is a it is a combination of words
that I'm frequently assigned a thing that I'm really obsessed
with right now, and I think it's it's partially just
spending time with the shows that I'm making is for me.
How much identity is not a fixed point. How we
(31:38):
present ourselves, how we meet the world, how we look,
how we engage, how we have sex, it changes constantly, constantly, constantly,
And that means as as somebody who who's you know.
(31:59):
My work is for better or worse most of my life,
and I love it. I love what I do intensely.
And the thing I say always when I'm making something,
the thing I say to a cast, the thing I
say to a company, the thing I say to an
(32:19):
audience if I'm talking to them, is like, I just
want you to have a nice time. Like that's it.
I just want you to have a nice time. And
what my nice time looks like is different than what
your nice time looks like. And I make spaces where
I hope, I hope people have the capacity to surprise themselves,
people have the capacity to discover that they enjoyed something
(32:42):
that they didn't think they enjoyed. Right, It's like you
go to a restaurant and you're like, I hate this,
let me taste it. Oh wait, I love it. Yeah,
And that there is like, you know, there's like a
queerness to that. And it's also like it's a gradient. Right.
I always talk about with Rocky like don't dream it
be it, don't dream it be it is perhaps the greatest,
(33:05):
most kind of mythical expression of so called queer joy.
Don't dream it be it could mean I'm going to
change absolutely everything about my identity. And it also could
mean like I think I'm gonna wear eyeshadow for the
first time and like, yeah, and it makes you make
that face and that is that is a it's joyous,
(33:26):
but it also like might bring one a millimeter closer
to themselves. And I don't know, I keep saying this,
but like that's the that's the thing that I'm addicted to.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
What I will say to you is this, to be it,
you have to see it. So I'm going to follow
up on what you said. To be it, you have
to see it. And you are giving that to people,
whether they are queer or not or trying to figure
out where they fit into this world. I say this, Allen,
(34:01):
we can't imagine what is possible without seeing it through
the lens of someone else.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
And I do think.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Queer people develop creativity creativity differently because we have spent
a life imagining ourselves into existence. Yeah, that's right that
most people haven't had to do.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
That's right, that's right. And yeah, and we've made things
out of nothing like we've made we and I mean
that quite literally, like we have like there is the
lineage of queer artists who have like taken this and
made something beautiful out of it, like that's survival and
(34:44):
and that work is like so often like pilot light
for something else. And frankly, like to be clear, I mean,
I feel like I hesitate using words like queer joy
because I don't always know what they mean, and they
it's so high pressure that I don't want to mess
it up, you know, But like that joy does not
(35:06):
just extend to queer people, and like it is like uh,
like I think uh. I was in I was in
like a bodega the other day, and I was surrounded
by people who exclusively I thought were gonna beat me up.
I was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, like all of
these hymns are staring at me in a really way,
(35:29):
which you know can still sometimes happen in New York City,
and in the most amazing way. All of a sudden,
the bodega started playing Sylvester, like the gayest disco track
imaginable and it's I was truly like bodega gods smile
on me, yes, And then I watched everyone in the
(35:51):
bodega like start like bopping to the Sylvester song. And
I was like, the American people need to write an
open letter of things to our queer ancestors. YEP, for
getting us through moments exactly like this, exactly.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
I feel that in my bones.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
Stay tuned. I'll be back in just a moment after
this brief message from our sponsors.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
As we're celebrating.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Gay Pride Month, Pride Month, resistance, fighting for our rights,
our existence to be seen. Where do you feel, Sam,
Where do you feel most at home these days? I?
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Man, it's so cheesy, but like I feel you know
you're coming to me in a moment of high showbiz.
You know, I work on Broadway the Tony Awards during
like five days. It's like very cool, but it's also
like the Westminster Dog Show, respectfully, and like I don't
mean to minimize that part of the industry, but like
(36:59):
ALTI mentally the thing that I love is making stuff
like that is actually like the thing I love most
about directing is directing. Yeah, I last year I won
a Tony Award, which is a crazy thing to say,
but it did happen. And the next day I started
(37:22):
rehearsal for a one person show in a one hundred
seed theater. Downtown with like actual trash on the floor,
And that is how I came up in theater, and
it is where I am the most comfortable, and it
meant everything. It meant everything to be in this like
(37:43):
amazing technicolor whirlwind of my dreams coming true. That's like
beautiful but also maybe not entirely real to be like wait, wait, wait,
wait wait, nope, you actually are just going to make
something in a basement and frankly like that show, which
is an amazing show called Can I Be frank by
a writer comedian Morgan Bassicus, a show that engages very
(38:06):
deeply with questions of like queer, ancestry and lineage and joy.
That's just back right now. And I don't say that
just as a plug. I say that to answer the
question when you're like, where do you feel the most comfortable?
I feel the most comfortable standing in the back of
that tiny theater, that tiny, hot, uncomfortable theater, watching Morgan
(38:31):
do this electric thing that only Morgan can do for
an audience of people that is small enough that everyone
can actually hear the way the other people laugh, Like
there's something amazing about sitting in a Broadway theater because
you feel like you're a part of a title wave.
But in a tiny room like the room we started Omerion,
you actually learn the personalities of the people sitting around you.
(38:53):
There's like one hundred and twenty people in the room,
So I never want to get away from that. And
like in the moments when I get really obsessed with
the showbiz part of things, which is a demon that
lives inside of me and perhaps all of us, I
really have to be tethered to like no, no, no.
You like making things in dark rooms, which is a
(39:15):
deeply unglamorous thing. It's so unglamorous, Like I just want
to be in sweatpants meeting stuff out with people.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
You know, I love that so much about you because
and I'm really just getting to know you through you know,
I've seen your craft and I've really enjoyed it. But
even hearing you talk, what I love is you're not
chasing success. You're not chasing the trophies, You're not chasing
(39:43):
this limelight. You're just you're chasing the process. You're chasing progress.
You're really trying to mold something that's different. And I
think that is so vulnerable, that is so brave. That
is spaces when people get to be at where you know,
I like to call it where the air is very
(40:05):
thin at the top.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Yeah, you move.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Success makes you move differently, right, it makes you move differently,
And I imagine you've felt it at times, but you
continue to stay grounded and true to what your work
is doing and how it's impacting people. And I think
that is so important, especially during Pride. And I want
this last question to and because I love the way
(40:31):
you use weirdos for the person listening to this podcast
who feels like they're too much, who feel who feels
too different, too weird, for the room they're in, what
would you tell them? Because not everyone gets to come
and see your work. That's the hard part about theater, right,
you have to have access, you have to have some
(40:51):
sort of privilege. It's not cheap, it's hard to do.
New York is expensive place to be to visit. Like,
I'm curious like you, because we said at the middle
of the show, seeing is believing you know, what is capable,
what you're capable of, what is you know. It's a
process of becoming. But like, what would you tell these
(41:13):
little weirdos in the small nooks and crannies we grew
up in who do feel too much, who feel too different,
Especially in a moment of pride, that is really important
that we show up for those kids who don't see
themselves all the time.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
I mean, I think I wasted a lot of time
from childhood but also through my twenties and even my
early thirties thinking about how the air was going to
be at the top, I love the thin air.
Speaker 6 (41:46):
Thing like, I.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Was so obsessed with where I was going that I
didn't spend a lot of time being where I was.
And in fact, because I have had the great privilege
of a real experience of success in my totally niche
and nerdy ass industry, to be clear, doing what I
(42:10):
do feels exactly like what it felt like making a
play for zero dollars when I was sixteen. Exactly. It
feels exactly the same, the good parts, it's the same
kind of good, it's the same kind of bad. I
was staying up then worrying about the same things that
I'm worrying about now. I in some ways long for
(42:35):
the time when I was making things without money or
pressure or eyes on it. Uh, And I like, I
don't know, I just like I think that.
Speaker 6 (42:49):
It does.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
I think there's a thing and I'm talking especially about theater,
like that's what I do. Like, I meet so many
amazing theater makers across the country and around the world
who were like, if only I could get to New York,
if only I was doing broad Way, if only I
could see Broadway. And I'm like, it's the same thing.
Like if I plant a tomato in the middle of
New York City, that is no different than planting a
tomato in a trailer park in Colorado. Like you're still
(43:13):
gonna have a tomato, You're still gonna enjoy gardening. It's
still gonna be delicious when you eat it. And I
think that there's something that you know, like, obviously Broadway
is amazing, but it also is really exclusive. And I wish,
especially for people who have a curiosity about theater, about
(43:33):
the arts, that that they're that loving the one you're
with could be enough that like, you know, I took
for granted the access to art that I had even
in the like tiny place where I grew up, because
I was just like, it's not New York. It made
me a meani man, Like that sucks. And and you
(43:55):
know the other thing that I'm still I'm still learning
and I'm sharpening, and I hope I keep learning. I
hope I'm not done learning. My goodness. Uh, it's like
this is maybe a dangerous way to say this, but
like if a thing feels good, that might mean that
it's good. You know, like if if you're enjoying being
(44:15):
with a group of people, if you're enjoying doing a thing,
even if, like you spent your whole life telling yourself
that you wanted to do something else or be with
someone else, like maybe it just feels good. Like maybe
that's like those cues we have to listen to. Like
I ignored cues for a long time because they did not
feel in line with something that I created in my
imagination about where I needed to be. No, I like
(44:39):
they they that, Like that is the thing that I
have worked the hardest to listen to. Is actually our
most animal instinct, which is.
Speaker 6 (44:50):
Like pleasure like pain, pleasure pain like follow pleasure, like
follow pleasure with abandon as long as you're not harming
other people in the process, like.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
We we say in Rocky Horror, give yourself over to
absolute pleasure. And that is that that trail, like keeping
your nose on the joy trail, which is not my quote.
I think that quote is. I think that quote is
Buffy Saint Marie actually, but like keep your nose on
(45:24):
the joy trail seriously, like one thing at a time.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
And what I'll say to that.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Is this, the things that we're taught to hide, especially
as kids who move differently, are very often the things
that make us extraordinary.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Of course I say that all the time in rehearsal.
I'm like, we're going to turn that scar into a star.
That like that is that is? That is absolutely it, It's
and it's it's the joy of my lifetime to get
to like do that on this crazy scale. It's my
whole you've described my job to me.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
Yeah, and it's powerful because you teach people that the
goal isn't to fit in ah. It invites us all
to feel like we don't have to move this way
and fall in line.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
It's almost like fuck it.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
I want to live a colorful life. I want to
have this creative imagination where I don't have to tone
it back to fit into this box where I have
to fall in line and have a suit and tie
and have a corporate job and have a family. Like,
fuck that I want to live, Yeah, I want to
live an extraordinary life where fuck, I make mistakes and
(46:41):
I figure it out and I like, have this beautiful,
colorful life that is so meaningful. And I feel like
it's so hard for people. It's so hard for people
to see, but when they see their work, it invites
them to see color in a way that is magical.
And I'm thankful for that. And I'm thankful for your work.
(47:01):
And I know our queer community is thankful for your work.
And I'm I really appreciate you coming on and being
like so open and vulnerable about it because it's it
is important. And I hope all the listeners and people
viewing this to go out and watch, you know, watch
your work, because it's magnificent.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
It's extraordinary.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
It's it's just so driven by purpose, and it moves
our culture and our queerness forward. And it's a fucking risk, Sam,
and you do it anyways, You fucking do it anyways.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
So thank you.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
Thanks for being so generous and awesome. I wish that
we could talk for an hour every single day.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Right, same but happy pride, I happy pride.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
Oh my god, we're gonna be so tired in thirty days.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, it's gonna be.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
I've got plenty of the year to or just sleep
a yeah, I love it. Well, thank you so much
for being on, and everyone go out please if you haven't, uh,
just fucking watch his work because.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
It is it's polluting the earth right now. It's too
many places.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
It's so good. It's just so good, and I can't like.
It's the best. It's the best, it's the best. It's
the best.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
So thank you and thanks for being here, thanks for
being Wide Open, Thanks everyone for tuning into another episode,
and we'll see you next week. Sam, thank you so
much for coming on this week's episode. What I take
away from this conversation and what I'll say that's so
important is the things we're actually taught to hide are
(48:33):
often the very things that make us extraordinary. The goal
isn't always to fit in. The goal is to become
more fully yourself. That's exactly what Sam's work invites us
all to do. Thank you so much for listening, thank
you for tuning into Wide Open, and we'll see you
next week on seven
Host
Ashlyn Harris
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