Latest / Arts Unscripted with Monica Holt / Sammi Cannold, Broadway, Film, and TV Director

Transcript

Sammi Cannold, Broadway, Film, and TV Director · Arts Unscripted with Monica Holt

0:08
Welcome back to CI to Eye with Monica Holt. I'm so glad you're here.
0:13
I was happy to spend some time in December reconnecting with Sammi Cannold.
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While most directors spend their careers mastering one medium,
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Sammi is building hers across all of them -- theater, film, television,
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live ceremonies --
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while simultaneously challenging some of the most entrenched assumptions about
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who gets to tell stories and how they should be told.
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When we sat down in December,
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Sammi was in Italy beginning her work on a lifelong dream project:
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being part of the creative team for the 2026 Olympic
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opening ceremony.
0:45
Sammi and I talked about the real challenges in her career,
0:49
holding creative vision while managing institutional risk,
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building partnerships between directors and marketing teams,
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and creating sustainable systems that let you enjoy the work instead of just
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surviving it.
1:01
What I love about talking to Sammi is how honest she is about all of it.
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The risks, the joy, the exhaustion. Plus,
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her reward system for getting through to-do lists involves Bridgerton and a
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random number generator,
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which might be the most relatable thing I've heard all year.
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Let's dive in together.
1:26
Sammi Cannold, welcome to CI to Eye. Thank you so much for being here.
1:31
It is so good to get to spend some time with you, not backstage,
1:34
not in the rush of production,
1:36
but really just the two of us sitting down together.
1:39
Thank you so much for having me.
1:40
I'm so thrilled to be here and I'm really excited for this conversation.
1:44
Me too. I know you're in a different time zone,
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so we really appreciate you making this all work.
1:51
With your story in particular because we'll get to talk about some sides of
1:55
theater and entertainment that everyone doesn't always have access to or
1:58
knowledge about,
1:59
I think that a really good way of grounding that is just by starting out asking
2:03
you about how you grew up because there was a lot of theater and film in your
2:07
life and what was it like being a part of that world?
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Did it feel like this was a natural path that you always wanted to explore?
2:15
I was so fortunate to be born into a theater-film
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family.
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My mom was working in theater and documentary film when I was growing up and my
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dad was working in film and TV as well.
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It created this really vibrant artistic childhood that I feel
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so fortunate to have had,
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and a lot of it was spent in the back of rehearsal rooms or in tech,
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and I think that it created this assumption that I
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was going to go into the family business, not because they pressured me,
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but because I clearly loved it so much.
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I was always begging my mom to bring me to rehearsal and I think it's the
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opposite of the journey that a lot of kids have where they have to convince
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their parents to let them go into the arts.
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I feel really fortunate in that way and I so embrace the privilege
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of it because I think a lot about Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 Hours
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Rule where he says that in order to become an expert at anything,
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you have to have 10,000 hours of practice at it.
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And for me that 10,000 hours started when I was a kid because I
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was introduced to the environment so early. So I'm really grateful.
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That's wonderful. And so well put.
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Having the perspective from a young age not just that the arts are vital and
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important to the world around us, but also that they're a viable career path,
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that they're a place where you can pursue a passion while at the same time
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learning those business skills, as you say,
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is a privilege and also just what a wonderful thing to experience and also that
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you didn't resist. That you didn't say, oh,
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well I want to be contrarian and therefore...
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Or did you have a phase like that?
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I did have a period of revolt when I was in
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high school. I told everyone, I was like,
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I'm not going to do what my parents do.
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I'm going to go work in international education policy. I mean,
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total 180.
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And I think that part of that was that I'm very cognizant of the
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conversation around privilege and how it impacts what we do and how it impacts
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our access to what we do.
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And I think that I wanted to sort of figure out a way to
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contribute on my own terms.
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And what I ultimately learned after I got out of that mercurial period of revolt
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was that there was a way to embrace that privilege
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and figure out how to pay it forward to people who might not have the same
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lottery of theatrical birth and simultaneously pursue a career on my own terms.
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So I just continue to be really grateful that I had that exposure because
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without it, I don't know that I'd be doing what I do.
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Of course.
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I think that's a beautiful way to have things in balance and perspective.
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So you get to college and you have this opportunity to work as a PA
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on Porgy and Bess with Diane Pollis who is a Tony Award-winning
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director,
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and you are looking at someone who is taking hold of a room and creating an
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experience.
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How did that influence your sense of what it means to be a director watching
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someone like Diane work that young in your career?
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I mean, it was so thrilling. I was so in awe of her.
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She was my life hero. I mean, my friends made so much fun of me in college.
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I had photos of Diane Pollis on my wall, like -- What kind of strange kid?
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And now over a decade later,
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I'm so lucky to call her a mentor and a friend.
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I was so enamored with her work, I think,
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initially because I had gone to see the Broadway revival of Pippin
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and I remember sitting there and watching it and being so knocked out by how
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somebody had made a story that we all knew and loved and
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music that we all knew and loved feel completely anew based on her
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interpretation of it.
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And I had this experience when I saw it where I turned around in my seat at
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intermission. I saw her standing at the back of the house and it really,
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for some reason,
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seeing her there and understanding the link between what I was seeing on stage
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and this person who I looked like was so
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helpful to me in understanding that this was a career that was available to me
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because I think it's one thing to grow up in the theater,
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to be around all of it. It's another thing to see a female director
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specifically who is doing exactly the thing that I was excited to be doing
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myself. And so when I got to work for her on Porgy,
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it was really quite life-changing because I got to understand the process of
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how she took a known beloved property and
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then made her own version of it up close.
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And it just really opened my eyes to what that meant and
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what I could do in my own career in the world.
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It sounds like all you saw is potential and ways to channel your energy and
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your thoughts.
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I think sometimes as you express and certainly we'll talk about more,
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being a woman, being a young woman,
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in a field that we know is dominated by men and sometimes by a
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very singular perspective...
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were there moments where you questioned whether you belonged in that world?
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Definitely.
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There were moments for me as a young woman that shaped my
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experience of what it meant to enter the field. I remember very specifically,
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I directed a concert version of Ragtime on
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Ellis Island when I was 22. And on the first day of rehearsal,
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Madeline Benson, who was the music director, who -- she's similarly,
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she was maybe a 24-year-old young woman at the time,
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we went shopping together to buy clothes to make ourselves
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look older because we were so nervous about being
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at the head of this room of Broadway legends when we were
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babies and worried that there wouldn't be a sense of trust and authority.
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So we marched in on the first day in our older looking outfits,
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whatever that means. And one hour into the first day of rehearsal,
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an article came out on playbill.com and the headline was "Meet the
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22-year-old director behind Ragtime on Ellis Island." And I was like, oh God,
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now everyone knows I'm 22.
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And what I understand now is that my male colleagues when they were
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22,
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didn't have the same degree of concern about trust and authority.
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And I think that what's interesting to me now is I actually
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find that I experience more related to
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my gender now than I did when I was first entering the industry,
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which is the opposite of what I thought it would be because people have a
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certain image of what a Broadway director is,
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and sometimes there's a bit of a recalibration in terms of what it
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means that this person who still looks like a
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12-year-old girl is a Broadway director,
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and how do you reconcile those two things? And I think that's very gendered.
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That's interesting to look at it from that lens because you're right,
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I think that young female in charge question is one
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that a lot of us encounter.
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I love the experience you're sharing about the two of you going shopping for
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'What are the clothes to fit the image that we're trying to present?' I think is
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something that at least to me feels universal in those moments of how do we
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become the thing that people are comfortable seeing?
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It takes time to evolve past that, as you well know.
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And yet, as you say,
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even with more experience, more credit,
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more valuable relationships and trust-building in the industry,
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you are still facing this assumption,
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this stereotype of what folks have anticipated for so long.
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And so there is a sort of armor that might not be the physical suit shopping
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that you did then,
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but that still exists when you have to walk into those rooms at first.
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At what point did you feel...
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maybe it's self-assured enough to walk into those rooms without feeling
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apologetic for your age or apologetic for your success, frankly?
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I think that assisting female directors who both
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won Tony Awards was so instrumental because I think that
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a lot of my female colleagues assisted men and couldn't see
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themselves in the rooms that they were occupying early in their careers.
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And for me, I spent four to five years assisting women.
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It became to me entirely normal in my brain to
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do that.
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And so I just sort of channeled that confidence and went forth and there were
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moments where it would pop up and I would realize it. I mean,
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I remember a very specific moment with a technical
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director where we were in the middle of figuring something out,
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and I think that there's an assumption sometimes that young women in particular
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don't understand the language of technical theater.
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And this technical director was speaking to me in a way that it was like I was
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five. He was like, 'There's this thing called the moving light,' or...
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I don't remember exactly what the conversation was about,
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but it was very rudimentary and at the time I was maybe 25
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and I didn't yet have the courage to say back to him,
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I have a degree in theater.
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I'm not new here.
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I know what a moving light is.
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So I just was sort of standing there and taking it.
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So my dear friend and colleague, Jason Sherwood,
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who is a set designer,
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jumped in and said, Hey,
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and so I just want to recalibrate this conversation.
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Sammi knows exactly what you're talking about. You can speak to her about this,
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this, and this,
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and I don't really appreciate that we're having this conversation this way.
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And I will always remember that moment because it was something I didn't yet
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have the courage to do for myself. As small of a moment as it was,
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it was a big turning point for me because it was something where I was like, oh,
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if this person can stand up for me, I need to be able to stand up for myself.
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Yeah, that's absolutely right. Kudos to Jason for stepping in,
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and I think your point about claiming that space yourself,
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to be able to assert yourself, even if it's, as I sometimes say,
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fake it 'til you feel it,
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it still makes a big difference.
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So you mentioned briefly Ragtime on Ellis Island.
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You have this wonderful history of working on site specific performances and
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kind of re-envisioning the connection between the material and the
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space that it's happening in. You staged Violet on a moving bus,
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which I encourage everyone to do a little reading up on because that was your
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sophomore year in college, is that right?
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Yeah.
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That's incredible. And then Ragtime on Ellis Island.
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How do you think about a project's physical space and how it impacts the story
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that you are trying to tell,
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and what is it that excites you about site-specific work?
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I think for me,
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the draw to site-specific work initially started somewhat out of necessity
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because when you're a young director,
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people aren't handing you the keys to theaters. They're not saying,
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do you want to do something on our main stage?
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So I was excited about what it would mean to find spaces that were
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in a roundabout way more accessible. Both of those productions,
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Ragtime on Ellis Island and Violet on a bus, were just a dream. I mean,
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it was so thrilling to get to make something with no
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parameters or guidelines. It was sort of like reinventing a wheel.
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And both of those projects taught me so much about
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the conversation between the story and the space and how it can be symbiotic.
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I think that I'm really excited about pieces in which the site
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that they're in enhances the story and the story enhances the site. And it
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was really cool on both of those to feel that symbiosis.
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To me,
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the moment that sort of captures my love of site-specific theater personally is
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when we did Violet on a bus,
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the opening number of that show is called On My Way,
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and we staged it such that when Violet sings for the first time 'And I,
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I am on my way,' the bus starts to move on that lyric.
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And the 360 full activation of all
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your senses that happens when you literally move on a lyric was just
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like, oh, wow.
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There's something really interesting there that I'm still really obsessed with
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and trying to find other things that achieve that spark.
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For sure. Can you explain for us how Violet on a bus worked?
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Yes. I've actually been thinking a lot about it recently because we're trying to
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bring it to New York. It's a puzzle piece of a -- I know.
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But yes,
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basically the way that it works is you as an audience member would go to a
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designated bus stop,
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which in both cases was outside of a theater and the bus would pull up.
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Some of the actors would already be on the bus. You get onto the bus,
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you have an assigned seat, you sit down in that seat,
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and then six of the seats are saved for actors. When the show starts,
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the bus drives for about 40 minutes,
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and it has a very specific route,
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but basically you are on the bus and characters are getting on and off at
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different bus stops depending on when they enter and exit the story.
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And then it stopped at two different locations.
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We had one location that was a space that we retrofitted to look like a
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nightclub, and then a second location that was a church that was loaned to us,
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and we performed the big gospel number in this church in Cambridge,
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Massachusetts, which was amazing.
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As you're thinking about productions and I mean just the real innovation that
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comes with a rethink outside of the proscenium,
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how do you weigh the risks of going down that kind of innovation,
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literal outside-the-box premise,
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against the expectations of what audiences have coming into it,
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or maybe even more so as you're thinking about what you're doing next,
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producers and institutions that you're working with,
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and what their tolerance is?
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I have two sort of schools of thought that I've taken from others about this.
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And the first is when I was in college,
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I had a production that I wasn't sure if I should go ahead with it or not.
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And I actually wrote to Diane Pollis -- this was after I had interned for her --
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and I said, should I go ahead with it?
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And she wrote this beautiful email back that basically the headline of it
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was,
17:09
'Success is completely tied to how much you are willing to risk.' And I thought
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that was thrilling and also made me want to go vomit
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because it sort of like it's so true. You know what I mean?
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It's like I think any great innovation in history required a
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degree of risk-taking to say, okay, this might not work,
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but here we go. I think about that all the time, where:
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what does it mean to play this safe? And playing it safe is not
17:40
going to lead to being wildly successful.
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And at the same time,
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taking a big risk could also lead to being a massive failure.
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So you sort of have to weigh those things.
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But the other thing that has shaped my thinking about it recently is that when
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you're 22, when you're in college,
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you don't have as much to risk because nobody knows who
18:07
you are. You could do seven failed productions in a row,
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and the New York Times isn't going to be like 'Failure director,' whatever,
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but when you have Broadway at the front of your name
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or you are working for an institution that has given you millions of
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dollars to make something and you feel an obligation to
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come through for the people that you're working with,
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that weighs into the calculus a lot for me of,
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how can I take a risk but also have some sort of safety net
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so that I'm not letting down the people that trusted me.
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So it's a bit of a mental equation that can really plague directors, I think.
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Of course. Well, and also satisfying your internal creative curiosity,
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balancing the projects you do so that you're not losing kind of your tie to
19:00
what makes your cup full at the end of the day.
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You mentioned it's different than when you have Broadway in front of your name.
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So your Broadway directorial debut was in 2023 with How to Dance in Ohio.
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Would you mind just sharing a little bit about how the musical came about,
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but also because I think there's a lot of richness to how you and the creative
19:23
team chose to tell that story and really the prioritization of authentic
19:26
representation in a way that there aren't so many examples of in terms
19:31
of the new musical Broadway canon.
19:33
So could you just share a little bit about that for the listener who might not
19:36
be as familiar?
19:37
Absolutely.
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So How to Dance in Ohio is about a group of autistic young adults at a
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counseling center in Columbus, Ohio, and their therapist, Dr. Amigo,
19:48
who has this idea to create a spring formal dance to
19:53
help them confront some of the challenges and open questions
19:58
in their day-to-day.
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And it revolves around this dance as sort of the lead up to this dance,
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but it's also a slice of what the lives of this group of individuals are like.
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And it was originally a documentary and then Jacob Yandura
20:13
and Rebekah Melocik turned it into a musical under the guidance of the
20:18
incredible legend director Hal Prince and Hal
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shepherded the musical with them for the first, I think,
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year and a half of its development. And then he very sadly passed away in 2019.
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And when I heard about it,
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I was so moved by the prospect of even being in consideration for
20:40
it because first of all, my brother is autistic,
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and it was a subject matter that I was really excited to engage with,
20:47
see if I could contribute something in terms of advocacy. But equally,
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Hal was an enormous hero of mine. I mean,
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I think every director in the American theater would say some version of that,
20:59
probably.
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He just is the grandfather of all musical theater directors in my opinion.
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And to be given the opportunity to try to
21:09
continue and evolve the work that he'd begun was just really staggering to me.
21:14
Yeah, it's beautiful.
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And it is also hearkening back to our earlier conversation.
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That season when you made your directorial debut on Broadway was a record
21:24
breaking year for the number of Broadway shows that were directed by women.
21:29
Do you still see the momentum there?
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Because I know the trends haven't been as consistent in the years after.
21:36
I mean, no, the momentum is gone,
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and I don't know why, but I was looking at some math.
21:48
And so in that season there were 16 plays or musicals directed or co-directed by
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a woman out of 39 shows in the season.
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So that's about 41% of the shows in the season, which is a record.
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In the 2024 - 2025 season, there were 11 plays or musicals,
22:04
directed or co-directed by a woman out of 43 shows in the season. That's 26%,
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so 41 down to 26. And then this season so far,
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there are six plays or musicals directed by a woman out of 33 shows in the
22:17
season announced. And that's 18%.
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Yikes.
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At first, I think when I saw the numbers last season, I was like,
22:26
oh, okay, things fluctuate.
22:29
2024 - 2025 is a fluke. We were trending upward and then this year...
22:34
but I think that the fact that this current year is so
22:39
low is a really bad sign.
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Yeah, yeah, no, I was like,
22:44
I don't think we're going to get a positive spin out of this one.
22:47
And I think that what's particularly crazy about it to me is that the year that
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it was 41%, Danya Taymor won the Tony
22:57
for best director of a musical.
22:59
So it's not a referendum on women
23:04
succeeding in these roles because clearly they're succeeding.
23:08
So I don't know. I mean,
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part of me thinks that maybe it's related to sort of the
23:15
unfortunate path that our country as a whole is
23:19
taking and in terms of representation and who's in seats of
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power where, and I mean it's important to say that these numbers,
23:29
as sad as they are,
23:30
are not as sad as the numbers for BIPOC directors on Broadway.
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So as much as this is a problem, that's an even bigger problem.
23:39
It's disheartening that we still are having these same
23:44
conversations it would seem, and if folks don't already follow --
23:48
there's an Instagram account called The Agnes Index that I believe Katie Spelman
23:52
runs in which she calls out the makeup of
23:57
creative teams for mostly shows that are opening on Broadway,
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but she'll do some regional shows as well.
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And it's pretty sobering every time you read that.
24:06
And I think some of that comes down to where the money is coming from and how
24:10
the people with the money are making decisions more than it's necessarily about
24:15
training and pipeline,
24:16
which are the go-tos that folks who are already in the industry try to
24:21
bolster as much as possible. But at the end of the day,
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it's folks with money who are making these decisions.
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It's even more interesting to me because of the richness a new perspective can
24:31
add on text that has already existed as much as it is with new
24:36
musicals that are coming from the minds of people who hadn't been
24:40
represented holistically on Broadway for a long time. And of course,
24:44
I think of you in that context,
24:45
we worked together when you directed the Sunset Boulevard with Stephanie J.
24:49
Block at the Kennedy Center,
24:51
but also from the Evita that you directed first at City Center right before it
24:55
went to Shakespeare and ART.
24:58
And they are female-centered stories.
25:01
Undoubtedly they are stories about these complicated, interesting,
25:04
powerful women, but they were written by men.
25:08
And so then to have your lens on them I think is something so
25:13
wonderful about how we reimagine these contemporary classics.
25:18
So I'm curious from that perspective too,
25:20
as you work on shows that are so clearly driven
25:25
by women when they're on stage but conceived through the minds of men,
25:30
how do you approach a situation like that as a director,
25:34
as someone reinterpreting the text?
25:36
I think for me, honestly,
25:38
that's the most exciting challenge because it's an opportunity to
25:43
say,
25:44
I may have something to add or a dimension to add to this
25:49
piece that is already so beloved.
25:51
And Evita was something that I had been sort of thinking about since I was a
25:55
teenager, and it was really important to me to say Hal Prince's original
26:00
and Michael Grandage's production that I saw on Broadway when I was a teenager
26:06
were both so incredible in their own right.
26:10
And what I tried to do and what our team tried to do was not meant in any
26:15
way to negate the value of those productions or of
26:20
the original source material. It was to say,
26:23
I think that in the year 2024, whenever we were doing it,
26:27
there is something that we can say about what this piece feels
26:32
like in the hands of women and Argentinians. And it was so exciting to get
26:37
to do that and to get to iterate on it. And I think that for me,
26:42
the production that we did when we got to DC really felt like
26:46
finally we got it right in terms of what we wanted the messaging to be.
26:50
And I have conflicting feelings about reviews as every artist I
26:55
think probably does,
26:57
but Peter Marks wrote this extraordinary review in the Washington Post
27:01
that was the nicest thing anyone has ever said about anything I've ever done,
27:07
and just was so unbelievably meaningful to
27:12
myself and to my whole team because here's Peter,
27:14
somebody who does not fit the demographic that created
27:19
this piece and tried to make people see it anew.
27:23
And yet he understood exactly what we were trying to do and was so
27:27
excited by what we were trying to do,
27:29
so much so that he called Shakespeare Theater Company the next day and said,
27:34
I know I just put out this review,
27:35
but I have to write a feature on this production.
27:38
I'm so invigorated by it. And then subsequently,
27:42
he and I got on the phone and just had an hour long conversation about the
27:46
choices in this production for fun. I mean, that exchange to Me was like,
27:51
aha.
27:54
All that to say,
27:55
you are also directing not just at the highest levels of theater and opera,
28:00
but we've got to talk a little bit about television too.
28:04
I will always be a Shonda Land girly and the squeal I squelt when I saw your
28:08
name very recently on Grey's Anatomy
28:13
was loud, but very delighted.
28:16
Talk to me a little bit about how that came about and what that
28:20
experience was like as something that I would think would be completely
28:23
different.
28:24
It was the best, I mean the best.
28:27
It just truly was such a phenomenal artistic experience when
28:32
I went to school, didn't study film or TV at all.
28:34
And so I didn't think that was necessarily going to be part of my
28:39
journey at least so soon. And then through a number of wonderful people,
28:43
I got exposed to what it would mean to be an episodic director in addition to
28:49
any film director,
28:50
and found that I really especially loved the form of
28:54
episodic.
28:55
And I have a friend who was a writer in the room on
28:59
Grey's two seasons ago,
29:01
and she made it possible for me to come shadow for a day
29:07
two seasons ago.
29:08
And I met a number of people including a senior writer named Mark Driscoll and
29:12
Debbie Allen and Chandra Wilson.
29:14
And they collectively made it possible along with Annie
29:19
Laks at Shonda Land for me to come shadow for a full episode last
29:23
spring. So I shadowed Chandra and it was just the most amazing
29:28
crash course in how to direct in that medium.
29:31
But what was beautiful is that Debbie and Chandra both come from musical
29:35
theater, and so we speak very much the same language,
29:38
and I think they recognize that in a way,
29:41
an episodic TV set is somewhat similar to what it is
29:46
to make a musical because there are so many moving parts and you have to be
29:50
thinking in so many different dimensions at the same time.
29:54
And so everybody at Grey's so generously gave me the opportunity to
29:59
direct this past fall, and it was the best.
30:02
I loved every second of it and I can't wait to do more of it.
30:06
I love hearing that. How conscious of you,
30:08
as you're putting yourself into new spaces and really taking
30:13
experiences and proving how they can cross different genres of
30:18
arts and entertainment.
30:19
I think the multiple adjacent industries part is something that
30:24
really took shape for me this year because I've always wanted to work
30:29
across industries, which really came initially from a love of ceremonies,
30:33
which is similar to theater but different. And I was like, Ooh,
30:37
is it possible to do both?
30:39
And we're recording this in 2025.
30:42
This year is the first year that I've gotten to work
30:47
in theater, indie film, episodic TV, live TV,
30:51
and ceremonies,
30:52
and what an incredible privilege that is to cross so
30:57
many related art forms.
30:59
And I think that what I've learned from it is that they're feeding each other in
31:04
the most beautiful way that I didn't really expect where the
31:09
language of the camera that I'm learning from episodic and from --
31:14
I worked on the Tony awards this year --
31:15
that language I then apply to how I think about
31:20
a musical, not just how we shoot the sizzle reel of the musical,
31:25
but how in certain moments it might make more sense to create a more
31:30
cinematic experience. How can you think about the language to your film and
31:34
transplant it and vice versa?
31:35
I think that I was initially pretty self-conscious going into episodic TV
31:40
because I was like, I didn't go to film school.
31:42
I don't necessarily have the same technical know-how as
31:47
a lot of these TV directors,
31:49
and I've read tons of books and listen to all the podcasts,
31:52
but I was nervous about actually doing it.
31:55
And what Debbie Allen said to me,
31:58
because she's the producing director on Grey's Anatomy among 10 million other
32:02
things that she does, is she was like,
32:05
I'm counting on you to be the actor's director that I know you
32:10
are because you come from the theater. And she was like,
32:13
I want you to give these actors a lot of notes and
32:19
use what you bring from the theater.
32:21
Don't hide it because you think it's not relevant to this world.
32:26
And I really embraced that and was so grateful that
32:31
she wasn't asking me to become a director that I wasn't,
32:36
but to sort of merge a new skill set with an old skillset,
32:39
which was really cool.
32:41
What a gift. I'm curious how you choose what projects to do.
32:46
Clearly there's a curiosity element to it,
32:49
but what really informs the choices that you make and the way that then you
32:54
carry out each of those projects?
32:56
I think that it's really about being drawn to work that I come across that feels
33:01
like it has an underlying mission.
33:04
Sometimes that mission is overt and sometimes it's more subtle,
33:08
but I very actively seek out projects that are advocacy driven.
33:13
I thought about it a lot on Grey's Anatomy actually, because I was like,
33:17
if you were to say television is advocacy,
33:21
I don't know what the first thing you might come up with
33:25
would be. Maybe
33:28
a documentary advocating for some movement or whatever it may be.
33:33
But I think I was so moved by how
33:38
an episode of Grey's Anatomy with the millions of people who put eyeballs on it,
33:43
is advocacy in that it is teaching people how to be
33:48
better stewards of their own health,
33:50
how to be advocates for their family members,
33:52
how to have respect for medical practitioners.
33:56
The episode that I directed,
33:58
one of the storylines was about breast reconstruction surgery,
34:01
and there was a lot of advocacy that Grey's and
34:06
ABC and Shonda Land and everybody put out when the episode came out about
34:10
insurance practices related to that surgery,
34:13
like an awareness campaign about that surgery. When I talk to doctors,
34:18
whenever I go to the doctor and say, I worked on Grey's Anatomy,
34:22
a third of the time, a doctor will say to me,
34:24
I became a doctor because of Grey's Anatomy.
34:26
And I think that is so crazy to me that
34:32
this piece of art is making the world better by
34:36
increasing the number of people who can save lives.
34:39
That just really moved me a lot because you might look at a single
34:44
episode and not think about it that way,
34:46
but it really is a form of advocacy in and of itself.
34:50
I'm so happy to hear you say all of that because I think we get a little caught
34:55
up sometimes, particularly in the nonprofit performing arts world,
34:58
in terms of this,
35:00
what is the mission arts work and what is the more commercial arts work?
35:05
And that's where we lead to a segmentation that doesn't allow us to
35:09
acknowledge what you've just said,
35:11
which is creativity no matter what form of expression or outlet is something
35:16
that we should all be rallying around and supporting in all of its forms and not
35:20
trying to put different versions of it into boxes because we don't know how it's
35:23
impacting every life that it touches.
35:25
Couldn't agree more.
35:26
And I think that what's important to me is that people know that
35:31
advocacy doesn't mean eat your vegetables.
35:34
It can be entertaining and advocacy at the same time.
35:38
It can be commercially successful and advocacy at the same time. It's like,
35:43
Wicked is advocacy. Yes,
35:46
I'm drawn to things that are advocacy as overtly as How to Dance in Ohio,
35:50
which is very specifically advocacy in its stated mission,
35:54
but also drawn to things like Wicked that are subtler
35:59
in what they are advocating for.
36:03
As you look back to young Sammi and your earliest of
36:07
experiences,
36:09
what advice would you give her about pursuing a
36:14
career in arts and creativity?
36:19
I would tell her to enjoy it more
36:24
because I think that I spent the last decade working so hard
36:29
to get where I wanted to be.
36:32
I didn't sleep a lot.
36:34
I spend my life sending emails and then there are moments when I'm in the
36:38
rehearsal room or when I watch a scenic transition come
36:43
together where I'm like, wow.
36:46
And I'm reminded of what the thrill of it is for me
36:50
personally,
36:52
but I think that I haven't prioritized enough
36:57
loving it.
36:58
And I think part of that is when you're so sleep deprived
37:03
and you're overwhelmed by the mountain of things you have to do to pull
37:06
something off, it's hard to embrace the joy of it.
37:10
And so one of the things that I've been working on a lot this year is creating
37:14
systems that make that more sustainable and not
37:19
sustainable in the sense that I can't do it currently,
37:22
but I can't do it and enjoy it.
37:24
And so I have a wonderful assistant who is now making life
37:29
so much easier in a way that is starting to allow me to
37:34
be present more, which I'm grateful for.
37:37
How important, and I mean especially for you,
37:39
someone who's seen so much success already,
37:41
but you're still early in your career obviously,
37:44
so a gift in some ways to be taking that lesson to heart now.
37:48
When there are kind of tireless engagements and working through the
37:53
night as you've said,
37:54
what helps you maintain that kind of creativity and sense of
37:59
purpose,
38:00
particularly given how uncertain our industry has been in even just the past
38:04
five years?
38:05
I think that a lot of it is what the underlying mission of the piece is
38:11
related to what we were just talking about,
38:12
that if I can find the north star of why I was excited to tell the story
38:17
in the first place,
38:19
I can recalibrate my excitement and investment and drive to get it right.
38:24
But I also think that recently I've come to embrace more that it's
38:29
such a privilege and a gift to
38:33
be the leader of a room.
38:35
And I love being the one to shepherd a community,
38:40
and I take that role really seriously.
38:42
And so it's the thought of the people in my community that are looking to
38:47
me that keeps me going because I'm like,
38:51
I can picture the face of that actor tomorrow morning when I come in and I have
38:55
a sort of loosey goosey plan versus if I have a solid plan
39:00
and I want to do right by that person who trusted me to shepherd this work
39:05
of art.
39:07
For sure.
39:08
That does bring us to our quickfire culture section, if I may.
39:13
So Sammi, what is one piece of culture right now -- a TV show,
39:18
book, TikTok trend -- that you are currently obsessed with?
39:23
Okay, I'm rewatching Bridgerton and I'm on season three,
39:27
and it's quite wild to me how, even if you know how it turns out,
39:32
every episode is like a nail biter.
39:35
And on my to-do list every night I put six
39:40
items of 10 minutes of Bridgerton,
39:43
and then I use a random number generator to tell me what task I have to do at a
39:47
given time.
39:48
And then six times throughout the evening I'll land on 10 minutes of Bridgerton
39:52
and I'm like, oh my God. Best 10 minutes.
39:57
This is genius.
39:58
Yeah, thank you. I'm going to publish this system.
40:02
Please. I await the blog post with resource guide.
40:05
This feels very important. If you could go back in time,
40:11
what is one live performance or event that you would want to attend?
40:14
I'm really obsessed with these pageants that happened at the turn of the 20th
40:19
century in American history. In particular,
40:21
there's a woman named Hazel MacKaye who was a female director at the turn of the
40:25
20th century who very few people know about,
40:27
and she would direct these pageants with thousands of townspeople that
40:32
were celebrations of American history in different ways. And most notably,
40:36
she's known for a giant suffrage pageant that happened on the steps of the US
40:41
Treasury building. And I would kill to see that,
40:44
but there's no footage for obvious reasons.
40:47
Maybe it needs to be recreated in some form.
40:50
I've often thought about that.
40:52
I'll be there when you say the time is right.
40:54
I'll call you.
40:55
Great.
40:57
What is one free resource in any field that everyone should check out?
41:02
I think the Broadway Briefing is incredible. If you don't get it,
41:06
it's really worth getting.
41:08
It is a daily digest that comes out every weekday of
41:12
news in the Broadway and broader theater community,
41:15
and it really helps me to stay current with what's happening and what my
41:20
friends and colleagues are up to.
41:22
Agree. And I'll just shout out again the Agnes Index,
41:25
which we mentioned on Instagram.
41:28
Big one. Please follow.
41:29
And our last question, your CI to Eye Moment:
41:33
if you could broadcast one message to executive directors, leadership,
41:37
staff, and boards of thousands of arts and culture organizations,
41:42
what would that message be today?
41:44
I think my message would just be a lot of gratitude because I know
41:49
just from talking to friends in those spaces, you included,
41:52
that it's a very challenging time to run an institution.
41:57
And I think it takes a lot of courage and bravery and tenacity to say,
42:02
we're going to make art on our own terms and we're going to come through for
42:05
artists and we're going to support missions that we believe in.
42:08
And I think that so often the conversations between artists and those
42:11
institutions become really nitty gritty really fast, of, 'Hey,
42:15
I need 5,000 more dollars for the set' and 'Sorry,
42:17
you can't have that actor,' and we don't spend enough time acknowledging that
42:23
I am so in awe of people who run institutions and so grateful that
42:27
they continue to exist because it's not a given.
42:31
Hear hear.
42:33
May we all stay strong and brave and courageous in the years to come.
42:37
Sammi, it's a joy always. I know you have lots of exciting things coming up,
42:42
and I just really appreciate your time, as always.
42:44
Thank you so much for having me. It was such a thrilling conversation.
42:47
Thank
42:56
you for listening to CI to Eye. If you enjoyed today's conversation,
43:01
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43:04
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next on CI to Eye. I'm Monica Holt. Thanks for listening.