Today we’d like to introduce you to Sam Sweets.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Well, I was always doing art. My mother used to say, ‘Art is life,’ which I now have tattooed on me. Although my family was not the most functional emotionally, my father is a musician and my mother was a painter, so i grew up knowing that art was the safest place to put my feelings.
I wanted to follow in both of their talents. I did art classes and studied piano guitar, and French horn, but eventually, fear of competing with my mom and getting too many notes from my dad made me take my own direction. When I was young, I was very into ballet and jazz dance and imagined myself becoming a dancer, but quickly found out my body was “wrong” for it. Outside of being too fat to be a ballerina, I was also too tall. I heard that Rockettes and chorus girls can usually only be 5’7”, and I was 5’8” by about fifth grade.
In middle school, I started acting and writing poetry. I continued doing both all through high school; I acted in all the plays and was in our literary magazine, Poetic Justice. I even won a poetry contest for the county I was in Florida, but after high school, I leaned more into acting because that, surprisingly, was my more reasonable job choice. I mean how many jobs are there out there for poets?
I moved to New York City when I turned 21 and started at HB Studio and Ucb Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. I then leaned into Comedy because I just think there’s something so beautiful about laughter. I felt like I got to perform a greater variety of emotions- Great comedy also has some drama in it- you know that’s what they say: tragedy plus time equals Comedy. I leaned into Improv, and I trained and performed at the Ucb theatre as well as at the Magnet Theater, where I was on a House team called Harlyquin. 2009 I wrote and performed in my own show at The Creek & The Cave, you can call me Gën, based on my alter ego, a bubbly Slovenian pop star named Gën Krupa.
I stepped away from Comedy for a few years to be in a band, Danger Pin, with a boyfriend of mine, but when we broke up, so did the project. So, I started to learn guitar and began writing my own solo music.
I moved to LA in 2016 and began performing at the Pack Theater. I was a writer and performer for the podcast The National Lampoon presents: The Final Edition, based off of the famed Lampoon Radio Hour.
I was on a sketch team and did various shows around town as a guest music act. I had just started doing a regular run of a rebooted version of my show, Gën’s Bootie Earthquake Show! And The Pack Theater when quarantine began. The AD of the Pack at the time asked if I could adapt my show for a Twitch channel they were going to launch. For the first 2-3 months of shutdown, I did a weekly livestream show hosted by GËN, with Samantha coming on as a musical guest. Some of these episodes are up on my YouTube channel, but i never uploaded them all from Twitch, because, well, I have ADHD and a whole lot of life got in the way. In late 2020, I found out my mom’s cancer was back, and she passed in April 2021. I’m an only child, and our relationship was complicated, to say the least, so it was a lot to deal with. One of the only things that got me through that was painting, with her old paintbrushes, and writing A LOT of poetry. I performed occasionally on a streaming poetry show. I started with Fernando Funes, which we continue to do occasionally around LA, usually at The Glendale Room (Dazed & Confused Poetry). Someone in comedy connected me to the dance group RAID, where I could cover my feelings in glitter and gogo dance them out. After coming through a year or so of the hard grief, I knew I finally hit a rock bottom of sorts because I finally started doing standup comedy.
I worked my way up to performing on shows at the HaHa Club, The Hollywood Roosevelt, and The Improv. I also began running an open mic at The Third Wheel Theater. I finally realized that if I wanted to find a show that combined many of the different things I do, I was going to need to make it myself. So, I began producing Comedy GoGo! A comedy variety show with music, drag queens, alt-comics, clowns, and standup, hosted by me and a dance team of cheerleaders. We did a year at El Cid and then a show at Los Globos in December. I’m currently looking for a new venue to be able to grow the show into the fabulous event I know it can be. I’ve begun performing burlesque and do a lot of events with the fabulous group Empowerment in Heels, who have helped me realize that my body actually is right for dance. Everybody is.
Right now, I’m also stretching my comedy-producing muscles by coproducing the Fireside Mic open mic and an event for Purim at Temple Akiba, chai-brow comedy, on March 23.
There’s so much that I do (did I say adhd lol?) I’m not sure of what I’ve left out. Oh right, I’m also a makeup artist specializing in horror, sjgmakeup.weebly.com or @samanthajane.makeup on insta) and I make homemade witchy candles w scorpio *vibes* that I vend around LA @spookylagirlfriend. I’ll be performing comedy with some old NYC pals on the Barely Making It Livestream Wed Feb 21 at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST
Years ago, I wrote an anti-hoarding rhyming children’s book, Marvin McGunk and All Of His Junk, which my mom hand illustrated. I intend to rerelease it for sale online later this year.
You can follow me @samsweets online.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
When I was younger, I struggled a lot more with body dysmorphia and eating disorder issues, which definitely kept me from pursuing certain things like dance and modeling. In 2021, both my mother and a very close ex whom I loved both passed away. The immense grief was a big struggle the past few years. But art, some good friends, and a lot of therapy, has helped me come through.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
I said a lot of projects I’m proud of in the first question, but I love that I’m an eclectic artist. The way I describe what I do to people is that we understand in medicine, there are both General practitioners and Specialists. I consider myself a General Practitioner of the Arts. It actually sets me apart that I can do so many versatile skills (writing, music, acting, dancing, makeup, wardrobe, general art creation), which definitely pays off when doing things like producing shows and doing things such as burlesque. I also always try to bring a level of truth to my work. Most of my writing comes from life because it’s the best writer of all. I have a drive to use art as a was to connect with others about the human experience.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
I wish I hadn’t let so many doubters keep me from doing all the “crazy” ideas I had thought about. If I hadn’t listened to ex-boyfriends or parents, I would have done my own shows years before I finally did. Art often has a level of insanity to it, and if other people don’t get what you’re doing, don’t let them talk you out of it.
Pricing:
- spookyLAgirlfriend candles are $15 each
Contact Info:
- Website: sjgmakeup.weebly.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samsweets/?hl=en
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@PopStarComedy?app=desktop
- SoundCloud: https://samanthajane.bandcamp.com/album/the-last-live-show-before-the-world-closed-live-at-peties-place-3-12-20
