With TV series like “Citadel,” “Hunters” and “Solos” under her belt, Tori Sampson is one of TV’s busiest young writers — and right now, that means she’s busy striking in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America. But as it turns out, she had plenty of work in the theater to keep her busy during the initial few weeks of the WGA’s walkout.
Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below:
The writer, who caught the attention of New York theatergoers with “If Pretty Hurts, Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka” back in 2019, has returned to Off Broadway with “This Land Was Made” at the Vineyard Theatre. She was in rehearsals ahead of the production’s June 4 opening when the WGA strike began, and on the new episode of “Stagecraft,” Variety’s theater podcast, she shared her point of view as one of the many, many writers who love the theater but who make a lot of their living in TV.
“I’ve been in the theater [for the last several weeks], but now as I’m moving back to L.A., I will join the picket lines,” Sampson said. “I’ll participate every day in that, because I’ve missed so much time. And I think probably the reality of everything will set in. I had a different reality from a lot of my peers because I had this play that was taking up all of my time and energy and brain space, so I really haven’t had the opportunity to sit with the strike in all of its repercussions.”
The play that was keeping her occupied, “This Land Was Made,” centers on the regulars at an Oakland bar in 1967, and imagines what happens when they meet Huey P. Newton, the real-life co-founder of the Black Panthers and a character in play. Although the show tackles serious issues (and also offers a fictionalized version of what might have happened behind the scenes of a real-life shooting in which Newton was involved), Sampson considers the play a comedy, and in general she strongly identifies as a writer of comedy.
“Humor unlocks people,” she explained. “It’s a universal language that we all speak. Everyone wants to laugh. Everybody wants to have that form of catharsis in their lives. It’s medicine in the way that it heals a lot of our ailments that we’re dealing with in society. As a writer I want to bring humor to my stories because I think it’s a way of galvanizing and unifying audiences. It’s probably our most powerful vehicle as artists and as writers, to understand comedy and the power and structure of comedy.”
On “Stagecraft,” Sampson discussed bringing humor to action-oriented TV series and to thrillers like “His & Hers,” the Netflix show she was working on just prior to the strike. She also outlined how she’s preparing to act as a showrunner herself one day while keeping one foot in the theater, and shared what she’s learned in TV that she aims to carry into her theater work as well.
For her, collaboration and mentorship are key. “I see the way people carry themselves in televison that I admire, people who have a lot pressure being put on them every day to produce big shows for big networks,” she said. “If they can still find the time to be kind to people, to allow peoples’ voices into their space, then I can do that too.”
To hear the full conversation, listen at the link above or download and subscribe to “Stagecraft” on podcast platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the Broadway Podcast Network. New episodes of “Stagecraft” are released every other week.
