Sam Labrecque (she/they)

Actor & CEO of SamSkape Productions Inc.
AKA Samantha Katelyn Labrecque (when in twouble)

CONTACT INFO
Website: www.samlabrecque.com
Instagram: @sluhbrek | www.instagram.com/sluhbrek

🏆Hollywood Fringe 2024 Artist Fund Award Recipient🏆

 

A Leo born in the San Fernando Valley in 1995, Sam has inhabited the city of Los Angeles for the entirety of her existence. A first-generation creative, she identifies as a Valley Girl, a tough guy, and since starting therapy: a sensitive wittle baby.

 

Deemed a “ham” as a toddler by her mother, Sam started performing in theatre when she was 5 years old. Her first director Gloria Watts took Sam under her wing, casting her in a slew of youth theatre musicals throughout her childhood as comedic boy, girl, and gender-neutral roles. 20 years later Sam discovered that she identifies as non-binary, and believes that Gloria knew all along.

 

At 13, Sam was promoted from performer to her first paid job as a choreographer and then assistant director to Gloria in her theatre programs. These skills would extend to Sam’s Girl Scout Gold Award project, in which she directed, choreographed, and produced a local production of Peter Pan with the children of the Guadalupe Center in her hometown of Canoga Park, introducing the performers and their families to theatre for the first time.

 

In middle school Sam was gifted a digital camera by her parents, which spawned her filmmaking journey. Shooting and editing music videos and comedy sketches in her bedroom, this would continue into high school where she created and starred in multiple award-winning short films at her school’s film festival (selected as winners by the cast of Airplane).

 

As a young person, Sam had no interest in school outside of the arts and in turn did not excel academically, often being teased for prioritizing her “work” over classes and socializing. To allow her to continue working on multiple creative projects at a time, Sam’s parents gave her the ultimatum that she must pass her academic classes or she would be whittled down to school-mandated projects only. Sam then made C’s until graduation.

 

As a senior, out of ten nominees Sam was voted into her most coveted position to date: Oak Park High School’s Drama Club President. However, in conjunction with being told her singing wasn’t up to snuff and in an act of rebellion against the department’s use of favoritism and type-casting in their productions, she opted for performing in local college and community theatre productions instead. This dawned her journey of pursuing performing professionally.

 

Much to the chagrin of her parents and surprise to her peers, after graduating high school Sam chose a serving job over a college education. In her decade of adulthood, she has worked a plethora of positions in and out of the entertainment industry in her pursuit of working creatively full-time. She has utilized her skills working professionally on-stage in theatre and on-camera for film, television, and commercials as a performer, as well as working backstage and behind the scenes in various production roles.

 

After 7 years of serving in restaurants, at 24 years old Sam was able to quit the service industry for good. She has performed in regional productions on stages throughout California and Alaska, and can be seen in films and television shows on Paramount Plus, Amazon Prime, and the Oxygen Network, and paid her bills through photography and videography work for clients through her business Sam Photography.

 

When the world shut down in 2020, Sam made the devastating decision to streamline her work and shelf her theatre career, solely pursuing on-camera work in film, television, and commercials. During the pandemic she resourcefully ran a successful Covid-Zoom-Live-Streaming-Bar-Mitzvah business while booking on-camera work, and eventually earned her SAG-AFTRA card.

 

In 2021, Sam decided to legitimize her business and incorporate her production company, becoming CEO of SamSkape Productions Inc. Since then she has worked with elementary schools creating documentaries showcasing their neurodivergent students, as well as middle school and college students supporting their respective theatre programs. After a lifetime of claiming she didn’t have the time to tone properly hone her skill so she would “never write”, she eventually wrote, produced, and starred in SamSkape’s debut film Trying, which featured a team of thirty and an all-woman crew.

 

Trying is an ADHD dramedy short film that tells the fictional day-in-the-life story of Meg, a millennial painter with ADHD. To her surprise, a year and a half after the inception of the film, Sam was diagnosed with ADHD herself, and was asked to screen the film at the TCL Chinese Theatre in collaboration with HollyShorts. She then went on to present the film at the Annual International Conference on ADHD, supported by leading ADHD organizations CHADD and ADDA.

 

Fostering her natural skills in leadership, entrepreneurship, and creativity, Sam now prioritizes spearheading and collaborating on creative projects with like-minded individuals. She is a trained actor, improviser (UCB), and singer, with dabblings in writing and stand-up comedy. Today she is developing a semi-autobiographical television series starring herself, which will combine elements of her short film Trying and solo stage show SAM.

 

Sam looks forward to inevitably being voted SAG-AFTRA president, hosting SNL, creating an arts funding initiative for LA schools, doing theatre in NYC, and performing comedy full-time, ultimately earning her enough money to return to the Valley and put a downpayment on a condo in Studio City to live in with her dog Emmett Brown Labrecque.

 

PAST AWARDS

 

WINNER: BroadwayWorld’s Los Angeles Best Regional Production Award for Into the Woods as the Baker’s Wife

 

WINNER: HollyShorts’ Film Screening Selection at TCL Chinese Theatres for Trying

 

WINNER: Ellen Albertini Dow Award for Performance in Musical Theatre as Luisa in The Fantasticks

 

WINNER: Best Supporting Actress in FANtastic Horror Film Festival for Here Be Monsters

 

NOMINATION: BroadwayWorld’s Best Supporting Actress as Bridget Sullivan in Lizzie the Musical

FINALIST: LA’s Next Great Star Presented by Princess Cruises

 

PRESENTER: Annual International Conference on ADHD for Film Trying

WINNER: Best Newcomer Performer Award at West Valley Playhouse

WINNER: Best Actress Award as Mrs. Lovett in OPHS’ Sweeney Todd

WINNER: Best Actress Award as Chris Gorman in OPHS’ Rumors

WINNER: Best Overall Film in OPHS’ Film Festival for What Goes Around

 

WINNER: Best Silent Film in OPHS’ Film Festival for What Goes Around

 

WINNER: Best Free Choice Film in OPHS’ Film Festival for Olly Olly Oxen Free

 

WINNER: San Fernando Valley Regional Spelling Bee Champion, 4th Grade Division