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Sammy Pontello

@sjpactor

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actor, voice/text/dialects, clown, virgo
🎭"It's called a PLAY, not a SERIOUS!"
📖 MFA Acting @utkmfaacting
⭐@boalswinnett

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33

10 months ago

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

Y’all know what time it is.

I had so many catty, clever things I thought about wrestling into a caption but instead I just want to say: I am grateful that in these fucked up times I have been able to find moments to feel safer and more comfortable being myself. I am proud of the number of queer characters I’ve gotten to bring to life this year. I’m so honored to be in a place where I’m now able to work with and teach the next generation of queer artists.

We’ve always been here and we always will be.

Okay now back to regularly scheduled programming. Hysterics! Cattiness! A third thing! Somebody cast me as something explicitly queer STAT! Zaza/Albin in a better key, or a drag Cleopatra (EGYPT is the name of a club of course), or the Emcee, or Dionysus, or Buzz Hauser, or a young Nathan Lane, or Patti LuPone’s misguided ego, or……..

Happy Pride.

(Photo creds and huge thanks again to @wertyface ) by @sjpactor

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7

a year ago

So many months late on this, but folks have been asking after it so I thought I’d finally post.

Back in July as part of the annual season fundraiser @grshakes I got to do a little clown act - highest bidder at the live auction could pick from a list of adjustments they could give me on the fly for the “Crab my dog” speech excerpted from our touring production of TWO GENTS where I played Launce. THANKFULLY the highest bidder chose “Wheel of Accents,” where with the ring of a bell, they could call out an accent listed from my resume and make me switch to that wherever I was in the speech.

Here’s that. The great Melissa Maxwell on the bell. What a joy to make people laugh with my fav lil clown Launce and best boy Crab, and to raise a few hundred bucks for a great organization doing it.

📸: @lightscamjaxson

#clown #actor #shakespeare #twogentlemenofverona by @sjpactor

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14

a year ago

I wasn’t really interested in traditional graduation photos. I had something else in mind.

The ask was a backstage shoot documenting me getting into makeup between shows on a 2-show day, and following me around backstage during a performance. @rachelxclift went above and beyond as usual, and introduced the idea of a surrealist shoot, combining me in street clothes and me in costume as the Emcee. What we captured was beyond what I’d even dreamt it could be:

Countless backstage moments: prepping for an entrance, lip trills, pounding water (careful). A gorgeous step by step shoot of the metric ton of makeup I put on every show to help anoint myself and transform into the Emcee. Some of the shenanigans haunting the new JBT, including lobby crosses as a demonic Dick van Dyke (careful!!!). Warm ups in full clown beat. And the surrealist shots most of all, which managed to articulate a relationship between myself and this role that has meant so much to me more clearly than 21,000+ words of a thesis could ever try to.

This added so much to my thesis portfolio, but also gave me a great gift: helping me document this beautiful process, and helping me remember it. I had to be really choosy with what I posted here, and each of these and the countless others that aren’t posted have helped me capture memories I get to take with me even now months after we’ve closed and the show went away.

Again, grateful grateful grateful. Too many gifts to name. But one that I will? @rachelclift.jpg for being such an amazing, generous, artful collaborator and helping me with this project that bridges between completing my MFA, my own artistry, and my life. by @sjpactor

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4 months ago

I don’t really know what to say about this one. I wrote a massive thesis about it, for one, so, like, what more needs be said? For two, I’ve been avoiding posting about it because it still somehow feels too intimate, too personal, too vulnerable to talk about.

The Emcee has been a lifelong dream. Watching Alan Cumming’s iconic performance as a teenager was a wake up call to a lot of things (you can laugh, it’s funny). And I’ve loved this show for what feels like my entire life, in any version. Getting the chance to explore something new, suspecting that there was something else besides what we knew to be successful interpretations of the role, was a gift I truly can’t speak more on. Read my thesis and you’ll see how 20,000+ words still doesn’t feel like enough. I have never felt more vulnerable, present, or implicated in a story that needs to be heard, and I’m so grateful to everyone who helped that happen.

Too many people to thank. Our community of people behind the scenes, designers, technicians, crew, stage management. Halena Kays and @thetorcampbell who were willing to take a chance on me and my crazy ideas. To @msorkie who was there quite literally every step of the way for me as my thesis advisor. My fellow Kit Kat Club denizens, my dreams and memories and nightmares. Our kick ass swings and understudies who kept things moving and worked to keep us prepared for anything. And the audiences who swarmed to see us and demanded shows be added, who laughed and wept with us as we opened up the new beautiful addition to the @clarencebrowntheatre

And of course to my fav collaborator @rachelxclift who has captured so many beautiful moments of me in my time here, but who I am particularly thankful to for capturing this one, from the truly high highs to the devastating lows.

🎶 Auf wiedersehen, à bientôt… 🎶

CABARET @clarencebrowntheatre
Book by Joe Masteroff, Music & Lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb
Directed by Halena Kays
Choreographed by @thetorcampbell
📸: @rachelxclift

Actors pictured include Liz Dell’Orco, Parker Jenkins, Katie Thorpe, Tricia Matthews, John Cherry, Kim Morgan Dean, Jackson Neilson, Bryce Hagen, and the company of CABARET. by @sjpactor

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5 months ago

November 🦃

Opened a theatre. Opened a show. Living in between. Thinking about Cynthia Erivo’s “No Good Deed.” by @sjpactor

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10 months ago

October 🎃

The leaves are changing. Getting my Scrooge on (thanks @hoganwayland ). Campus Garys (thanks @thelbwells ). Plant donations from this awesome community contributing to my jungle of an apartment. All things through Nathan Lane. by @sjpactor

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16

a year ago

SENSE & SENSIBILITY
@clarencebrowntheatre
Directed by @caselephant

What an unexpected JOY playing Colonel Brandon was. When I told people I’d be playing him and was met with gasps of, “Oh, but everyone LOVES Colonel Brandon,” I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe it, but getting to experience that love firsthand every night from fans of the novel was something special, as was getting to spend some time with such a deeply caring soul. This, plus mostly just getting to hang out with @merrymerritt onstage, and play in our gorgeous playground courtesy of @smrckadesigns set and @tori_niemiec costumes, was such a fun way to kick off this season.

📸: @rachelxclift & Ella Mars
Actors pictured include Gabriela Bulka, McKinley Merritt, David Brian Alley, Develyn Jayan, and the company of SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. by @sjpactor

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a year ago

September 🎂

This is what was actually in my camera roll from this month. Another trip around the sun.

Which bunny are you?

Which bunny am I???

(Boujee) by @sjpactor

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10

a year ago

July & August ☀️🌧️

…. were a whirlwind. So instead of a proper dump, here’s some production photos of the two shows that occupied a lot of my brain during those months: TWO GENTS and I LOVE YOU, YOU’RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE

(plus some glam shots, a Bottom pic (don’t get cheeky), and the last peak season tomato salad I made this summer)

What a joy and privilege to get to do two of the things I love the most: be an absolute clown and bring Shakespeare’s language to 21st century ears, and work at both ends of the spectrum of musical comedy madness and beautiful intimacy through song. And thanks again to the utterly mad @ethangrahamroeder and @firsttakeco for trusting me to sneak in NOW CHANGE a week before starting another show, three weeks late into their rehearsal process.

I LOVE YOU, YOU’RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE
With @firsttakeco
Directed by @ethangrahamroeder

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
A co-pro tour with @grshakes and @clarencebrowntheatre
Directed by Katie Lupica

📸: @holly__rainey @clarencebrowntheatre @develynthedetail by @sjpactor

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a year ago

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a year ago

MAY 🏔️👑

…. was extraordinarily busy.

Closed a show. Quick cheeky vacay to middle TN ft. furry friends and Rock City. Lotta salads. Packed a house. Date and olive Calabrian chili tapenade!!! Taught a workshop!!!! Landed in Winona!!!!!

As always swipe to the end for the best. by @sjpactor

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4

a year ago