Sam Mueller

Sam Mueller

Sam Mueller [they|she] is a Chicago-born, Florida-raised, New York-based playwright. Their work primarily explores queer bodies, public spaces, and the search for safety and security to live as one's authentic self. They find a deep joy in working with students, writing on public transportation, and being in the pit at concerts. Their plays include Laced (2022 Princess Grace Semifinalist, 2020 Kilroys List...
Sam Mueller [they|she] is a Chicago-born, Florida-raised, New York-based playwright. Their work primarily explores queer bodies, public spaces, and the search for safety and security to live as one's authentic self. They find a deep joy in working with students, writing on public transportation, and being in the pit at concerts. Their plays include Laced (2022 Princess Grace Semifinalist, 2020 Kilroys List, 2019 O’Neill Finalist), 70.3 (2022 Parity Productions Annual Commission, 2020 Hearth Theater Commission), and LYS (2021 WMU Commission). The plays (and Sam) are all very queer. BS: Northwestern University

Plays

  • PIN. by Sam Mueller
    Recommendations: 3
    ·
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: drama, movement/physical
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    Keyword: contains LGBTQ character, nonbinary lead + 1 more
    Genre: drama, movement/physical
    Keyword: contains LGBTQ character, nonbinary lead, wrestling
    When nonbinary athlete Jo Wagner is kicked off their high school wrestling team for being on testosterone, their rival MJ McKinnon comes up with a plan to stage a guerrilla final match for their senior year spring. Flanked by new local radio DJs, Ray & Jay, and factually bolstered by biology teacher Tom Rodgers, the event grows in scope, joy, imagination, and also complications. In a world structurally...
    When nonbinary athlete Jo Wagner is kicked off their high school wrestling team for being on testosterone, their rival MJ McKinnon comes up with a plan to stage a guerrilla final match for their senior year spring. Flanked by new local radio DJs, Ray & Jay, and factually bolstered by biology teacher Tom Rodgers, the event grows in scope, joy, imagination, and also complications. In a world structurally designed around the false ideas of binary gender and sex, what would it mean to not only protect trans-nonbinary kids, but to also let them thrive?
  • 70.3 by Sam Mueller
    Recommendations: 2
    ·
    Cast: 
    4
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama
    ·
    Keyword: triathlon, Body image + 1 more
    Genre: comedy, drama
    Keyword: triathlon, Body image, lgbtq body image
    After Lola loses weight, she finds her physical body is constantly in the spotlight —
    In her office, on the internet in DM’s from people she hasn’t spoken to in years, among her closest friends.
    She can’t take it anymore.
    She runs away to Boulder, Colorado, where not a single soul knows who she is,
    And she signs up for a half Ironman.
    This is where the play begins.
  • Laced by Sam Mueller
    Recommendations: 3
    ·
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: drama, political
    ·
    Keyword: LGBTQ, Non-Binary
    Genre: drama, political
    Keyword: LGBTQ, Non-Binary
    The night after a queer bar outside of Tampa, Florida is vandalized, three twenty-something bartenders gather to grieve, riot, and above all, piece together the events of the night before. Fiery and poetic, LACED ferociously celebrates the spaces in which we find our truest selves.
  • for the (im)possibility of california by Sam Mueller
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    1–3
    ·
    Genre: drama, experimental
    Genre: drama, experimental
    Inside The Cook County Court, someone is searching inside the maze of the judicial system. Weaving between the past and the present, for the (im)possibility of california is a look at how love and danger often mix in chaotic, explosive ways.
  • Out East by Sam Mueller
    Cast: 
    8
    ·
    Genre: drama
    ·
    Keyword: class, hamptons + 2 more
    Genre: drama
    Keyword: class, hamptons, pandemic, Covid-19
    In the middle of the 2020 pandemic summer, a nanny, a chef, and a personal trainer are forced to quarantine with their boss's mistress in the spare house in Amagansett. Juggling this huge secret as well as all of the stress of the pandemic, Out East looks unabashedly at how we might have all lived through the same 2020 but we did so with very different privileges and circumstances.