Director, Writer, Teacher
Sam Hunter is a director, writer, and teacher. He was a founding member of the Hungry River Theater Company, which established the Old Town Theater in Ridgecrest, CA in 2012, and is the current artistic director of The West, hailed as one of LA’s “best theater companies.” He now works across borders in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Berlin.
He received the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s German Chancellor Fellowship for 2017-18, studying ensemble and repertory theater systems in Germany, sponsored by the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch. The culmination of this research was recently published in American Theatre Magazine
As a writer, his play Lady Into Fox won a number of awards and nominations in Los Angeles. He is currently writing an adaptation of Sholom Alechem’s Wandering Stars with Julie Paucker for the Vagantenbühne in Berlin.
Most recently, he worked as a devising coach for Schauspiel Chemnitz. In Los Angeles he directed with his company, The West, as well as The Echo Theater Company. He was the 2013-14 Artistic Fellow at the American Conservator Theater, where he founded The Fellows Project, a chance for each fellow to serve as department head on a small-scale production.
Sam has taught improvisation, devising, and Viewpoints in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Ridgecrest, CA, and with the ActorFactory in Berlin, Germany.
He studied theater at the University of California, San Diego.
