What’s sampson up to
Maine Playwrights Festival
Sampson will appear in THE FUTURE OF OUR GARBAGE by Stowell P. Watters, Directed by Hollie Pryor. A garbageman navigates loss and heartache in an absurd future where technology races ahead but someone still has to pick up the trash.
Show runs from Thursday to Sunday, May 2nd to May 12th, at Portland Stage Studio Theatre. Check out the festival and learn more on the Acorn Productions website.
At The Table - Dramatic Repertory Company
Dramatic Repertory Company’s Patron’s Club Reading Series presents AT THE TABLE by Michael Perlman, Directed by Nathan Speckman. Sampson is reading stage directions for this staged reading on May 14th, 7:30pm at Portland Stage Studio Theatre. Learn more and get tickets here.
Lifesongs Project with Palaver Strings
The Lifesongs Project celebrates the stories of LGBTQ+ people in our local community. Working with professional songwriters and engineers, project participants write and record original songs of love, loss, courage, and affirmation. Sampson is the coordinator for this program.
Come party with us at our Celebration Concert on Sunday June 8th, 2:00pm, at SPACE in Portland.
ABDUCTION: The Harvesting PROLIFIC PRODUCTIONS
Sampson was in a film last year! Abduction: The Harvesting will be released on Amazon Prime, iTunes, Vudu, Google, among others, on June 18th, 2024. Watch the trailor here!
Showing up to a Free Palestine Protest? Here’s a song!
I wrote a protest song! Please, use it at your protest. Teach it to your friends. Sing it when you need your voice to be heard.
About Sampson
Sampson Spadafore (they/he) is a white, neurodivergent, queer, gay, nonbinary trans man currently living on unceded Wabanaki tribal land known as Westbrook, Maine. Sampson works as a poet, writer, and theatre artist around themes of trans identity, queer and trans joy, relationship to family, romantic partners, and community, grief, spirituality, and self expression. They hold a BFA in Musical Theatre from Nazareth University of Rochester. He was the recipient of the 2022 Bodwell Fellowship through the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance and Hewnoaks Artist Residency.
Artist Statement
I work and play in the realm of liberatory movement. My writing and performance is based in my own personal experience and identity, and while not representative of the whole of the trans experience, is a piece of the larger consciousness raising movement that has spanned hundreds of years through trans cultural icons, trans innovators and advocates, and the average every-day, working-class trans person. I create for my community, and for everyone else. For those who love me and hate me, because I believe in their liberation too.
Theatre is a spiritual space for me and it is where I find myself the most comfortable and energized. Just as ancient humans once used the stage to tell the stories of and honor the gods, we humans today play as a way to see the divine in one another. My humanity is on full display when I’m on stage. I use song, dance, poetry and speech to engage, confront, and challenge audiences. I like to hold a mirror to society and ask them questions that may scare them but lead to their freedom.