Samantha Chaulk

Sam Chaulk

Sam is a teaching theatre artist from Newfoundland who holds a BFA from Memorial University of Newfoundland and is currently enrolled at York, getting her MFA in performance creation. Her specialties include improvisation, music, and creating new works. She wrote and starred in Dear Uncle Wish, which debuted at the Toronto Fringe Festival. As an actor and musician, she has worked three seasons at Rising Tide Theatre and performed and composed music for The Spur-of-the-Moment Shakespeare Collective. Sam can be seen improvising at The Social Capital in Canada’s Next Top Blank, a show that went to The Chicago Musical Improv Festival in 2018.

Q&A with Sam

Name your favourite YPT production:

Mary Poppins! It has inspired me for a long time. When I was in high school, I was obsessed with the original cast recording. When I went to university, I wrote a philosophy essay about how Mary Poppins perfectly encapsulates Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, so yeah – I’m obsessed! YPT’s production beautifully captured so much of what I love about Mary Poppins – the importance of balancing things like spontaneity and discipline, work and family, and silliness and seriousness. I’ve heard Feed the Birds so many times, but Aisha Jarvis’s Bird Woman still made me cry!

Describe your favourite Drama School memory:

My favourite drama school memory is from Camp 2019. One of our students came up with an idea for our show that featured a superhero named Minor Inconvenience Man. The type of problems MIM would solve were things like someone’s hand not fitting in a Pringles can and cats jumping up on counters – all while a meteor was headed directly for earth! It made me laugh every time.

What would the central theme of a play written about you be?

The central theme of a play written about me would be the acknowledgement of complexity and the idea that one thing can be true without negating the truth of something else. In a world where perspectives seem increasingly black and white, I hope for a grey area revolution!