How One Striking TV Writer Has Kept Busy in Theater

variety.com:

Gordon Cox Theater Editor With TV series like “Citadel,” “Hunters” and “Solos” under her belt, Tori Sampson is one of TV’s busiest young writers — and right now, that means she’s busy striking in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America.

But as it turns out, she had plenty of work in the theater to keep her busy during the initial few weeks of the WGA’s walkout. Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below: The writer, who caught the attention of New York theatergoers with “If Pretty Hurts, Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka” back in 2019, has returned to Off Broadway with “This Land Was Made” at the Vineyard Theatre.

She was in rehearsals ahead of the production’s June 4 opening when the WGA strike began, and on the new episode of “Stagecraft,” Variety’s theater podcast, she shared her point of view as one of the many, many writers who love the theater but who make a lot of their living in TV. “I’ve been in the theater [for the last several weeks], but now as I’m moving back to L.A., I will join the picket lines,” Sampson said. “I’ll participate every day in that, because I’ve missed so much time.

And I think probably the reality of everything will set in. I had a different reality from a lot of my peers because I had this play that was taking up all of my time and energy and brain space, so I really haven’t had the opportunity to sit with the strike in all of its repercussions.” The play that was keeping her occupied, “This Land Was Made,” centers on the regulars at an Oakland bar in 1967, and imagines what happens when they meet Huey P.