THIS LAND WAS MADE

Tori Sampson a native of Boston, MA is proud to be from “The City of Champions” and even prouder to be a human rights activist and Black Woman storyteller. By introducing her daughter to the genius that was Carroll O’connor, Tori’s  mother opened her eyes to the art and power of comedy for “goodness sake”. And it was on and poppin’ from there. Today, Tori focuses her imagination on creating comedies for the stage. Her plays include If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must be a Muhfucka (Playwrights Horizons, 2019), This Land Was Made (Vineyard Theatre, 2018), and Cadillac Crew (Yale Repertory Theater, 2019). Her plays have been developed at Great Plains Theatre Conference, Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s The Ground Floor residency program, Victory Garden’s IGNITION Festival of New Plays, Playwrights Foundation, Ubuntu Festival and Vineyard Theater. Tori is a 2017–18 Playwright’s Center Jerome Fellow and a 2018-19 Mcknight Fellow. Two of her plays appeared on the 2017 Kilroys List. Her awards and honors include the 2016 Relentless Award, Honorable Mention; the 2016 Paula Vogel Award in Playwriting from The Kennedy Center; the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, Second Place; the Alliance Theater’s 2017 Kendeda Prize, Finalist; the 2018 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Finalist. Tori is currently working on commissions from Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, and Atlantic Theater Company. She holds a BS in sociology from Ball State University and an MFA in playwriting from Yale School of Drama.

Taylor is a New York-based director and theatremaker from Chicago and one of the Producing Artistic Leaders of OBIE-award winning The Movement Theatre Company in Harlem. Her work focuses on dissecting and exploring issues related to race, gender, and the intersectionality of identity (horror and ghosts also tend to be themes in her work).

She has worked as a director, assistant, and collaborator with companies including Playwrights Horizons, CTG, Baltimore Center Stage, Signature Theatre Company, Page 73, Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, The Public, EST, Ars Nova, Radical Evolution, and The 24 Hour Plays. Selected directing credits: Man Cave by John J. Caswell Jr, Tambo & Bones by Dave Harris, The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington by James Ijames (NYT Critic’s Pick), Richard & Jane & Dick & Sally by Noah Diaz, Tough by Margot Connolly, Plano by Will Arbery (Drama Desk nom for Best Director), Songs About Trains (co-directed with Rebecca Martinez), ALLOND(R)A by Gina Femia, Think Before You Holla (creator/deviser), FOOD by Rhonda Marie Khan, Accidental Burlesque by Gina Femia (developed through the Audrey Residency at New Georges).

She is the 2021 LPTW Lucille Lortel Award recipient, a New Georges Affiliated Artist, 2017-2018 Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow, and Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab alum. BFA, Carnegie Mellon University. Member of SDC.