At the Theatre Company: Debut. Lookingglass credits: Lookingglass Alice (Chicago, Louisville, Atlanta, Syracuse), Peter Pan (A Play). Chicago credits include: The Feast (An Intimate Tempest) and Hunchback at Redmoon, Hot L Baltimore at Steppenwolf, and several productions at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. Regional credits include: Doctor’s Dilemma at American Players Theatre, A Christmas Carol at Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Boys Next Door at Syracuse Stage, and The Spy on tour with the Acting Company. TV Credits include “Boardwalk Empire,” “Mob Doctor,” and “Crisis.” Samuel is a Stakeholding Partner in the Back Room Shakespeare Project.

MEET SAMUEL TAYLOR
The White Knight and other roles in Lookingglass Alice

• Hometown: Chicago
• Training: University of Minnesota, Guthrie Theatre, BFA
• What was the role that changed your life? No one role or play changes a person’s life. A life in the theatre is, like anything else, a lifelong process of rededication. 
• Why are you an actor? Like any evolving process, I became an actor for different reasons than I stayed an actor, and those reasons will likely not be the reasons I am or am not one in 10 years. I studied acting because it offered a truer, harder, more loving way of looking at life. I stayed an actor because the community of people with which one gets to live as an actor is extraordinary.
• What would you be doing for a career if you weren’t an actor? I’d be a baker.
• Ideal scene partner: I’d like to work with Will Kemp, Richard Cowley and Richard Burbage.
• Why does this play matter? Children tend to view childhood as a profound difficulty, which it is. Adults tend to view it as a hazy memory of better days. This play offers a way of communicating between adulthood and childhood that does better for everyone.
• What do you hope the audience gets out of Lookingglass Alice? I hope the audience experiences the layer-cake of nonsense and truth in this play. I hope that they experience the delight of nonsense, the …
• Finish this sentence: “All I want is … “ I apologize. This is an impossible question. Life is a chaotic process of evolving needs and desires. No one thing can fulfill a person’s life-force.

More ‘Meet the Cast’ profiles:
Adeoye, the Cheshire Cat in Lookingglass Alice
Molly Brennan, the Red Queen in Lookingglass Alice
Maurice Jones, Orlando in As You Like It
Geoffrey Kent, Actor, Assistant Director and Fight Director in As You Like It
Samuel Taylor, the White Knight in Lookingglass Alice