Sam Walters


Sam Walters MBE is a British theatre director who retired in 2014 as Artistic Director of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London. He has also directed in the West End and at Ipswich, Canterbury and Greenwich, as well as at LAMDA, RADA and Webber Douglas. After 42 years Walters, the United Kingdom's longest-serving artistic director, and his wife and associate director, Auriol Smith, stepped down from their posts at the Orange Tree Theatre in June 2014.

Career

Early years

Sam Walters was educated at Felsted School and while there, in 1957, he won the Public Schools Debating Association public speaking competition. He also captained the Essex Young Amateurs cricket team. He then took a degree at Merton College, Oxford, where he was president of the Experimental Theatre Club. He trained as an actor at LAMDA turning to directing with the formation of the Worcester Repertory Company in 1967.

The Orange Tree Theatre

He was invited to establish Jamaica's first full-time theatre company and drama school, and on his return to England in 1971 he founded the Orange Tree Theatre, first in a room above the Orange Tree pub and then in a purpose-built theatre, in a converted former school. The Orange Tree was London's first purpose built Theatre in the Round.
"When we started the Orange Tree Theatre in 1971, we only wanted to put on plays. There was no political or social aim, nor did we philosophise about theatre-in-the-round or a style of minimal theatre. There was no money for stage lights or a raised stage, so we performed by daylight on the same floor level as the seating. And we discovered the excitement of making the audience part of the action.".
Walters won a Time Out Award for his 1987–88 season in the old theatre, being described as a "theatrical totter", and in 1989 was awarded a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship, part of which he spent in Prague during the Velvet Revolution, and part in Moscow and Leningrad.
In 1991 he received the Charrington Fringe Award for Outstanding Achievement in Small Theatre, which was followed by the Peter Brook Empty Space Award for the work of the 1992–93 company season.
In 1993–94 he took a year away from the Orange Tree, taught in America and visited all fellow theatres-in-the-round.
In 2012 he was awarded a Special Achievement Award at the Off West End Theatre Awards.
In 2009 he was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters by Kington University
He received a Peter Brook Special Achievement Award at the 2013 Empty Space Peter Brook Awards.

Honours

He was appointed MBE in 1999. He and his wife Auriol Smith received the Freedom of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in December 2014.

Productions

Sam Walters' productions at the Orange Tree Theatre include:

Old Orange Tree Theatre

Sam Walters is married to actress-director Auriol Smith, whom he met while doing pantomime at Rotherham in 1962. They have two daughters: Dorcas Walters, who was principal dancer with Birmingham Royal Ballet and now works in arts administration, and Octavia Walters, formerly an actress, now a sports injury masseur.