Samantha Williams-Gray
Prison Arts Theater Program
Samantha Williams-Gray is a Tlingit Indian born in the southern mountains of Oregon and raised in the wilds of Humboldt County, California. Samantha currently lives in coastal Humboldt County and works in Northern California. She earned her BA in Native American Studies from Humboldt State University, and her MA in Psychology from Meridian University. She is presently working on art projects that will conclude her training with a certification in Expressive Arts, from Tamalpa Institute. Samantha weaves together trauma-informed approaches, expressive arts, visual arts, and Indigenous wisdom and healing practices into her work. She uses the intersecting points of people, politics, history, and healing to inform her transformative approach to performance and education.
Samantha’s recent work includes: Teaching Artist with Dell’Arte’s Arts In Corrections Theater Program at Pelican Bay State Prison, January 2023 – present; Teaching Artist with Playhouse Arts Skue-yech Son-eye-nah Program, 2023 – present; The Bartow Project, a collaboration between the Wiyot Tribe and Dell’Arte, 2020 – 2022; and Director of the film Work Is Ceremony, 2022.
Before returning to Humboldt four and a half years ago, Julie spent eleven years in the Bay Area where she was on faculty at American Conservatory Theatre and St. Mary’s College as well as a teaching artist with a variety of Bay Area schools and companies from youth to adults. While in the Bay Area she performed with We Players, S.F. Shakes, Idiot String, Cutting Ball, Impact Theatre, Shotgun Players, as well as in clown cabarets and devised theater festivals. Julie was a healthcare clown with the Medical Clown Project for six and half years and currently sits on their board. She is a certified Michael Chekhov Technique instructor and is a graduate of SOMA studios (Minneapolis) Alexander Technique Teacher Training program. Julie is a 2010 alumna of Dell’Arte International’s MFA and holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Julie is committed to de-centering white privilege, cultivating belonging and solidarity through creative play, and is continuously honing her skills to be a thoughtful and adept co-conspirator in the movement for social justice.
