By Joshua Sanchez
How can being in a pre-broadway production bring you as far as performing on the Tony’s? It seems unreal, doesn’t it? Well that’s what happened to Samantha Pauly. Samantha Pauly played the role of K-Howard in the Pre-Broadway production of Six the Musical. She was the original K-Howard on Broadway, playing the role for three years. Although Covid-19 delayed her broadway debut, it never stopped her from following her dreams.
During Samantha’s career, she has performed in many different musicals, movies and plays. Right before Six, she got cast in the national tour of Bat Out of Hell, but soon canceled from getting the role of K-Howard. Samantha’s dreams were finally coming true with the news of Six making it on Broadway. Unfortunately, as soon as they were about to open in New York City, Six closed due to the pandemic. During the pandemic, most if not all grew bored after only a few days of staying home, which foreshadowed creative tasks and hobbies to work on during these hard times. For example, Samantha used social media to create YouTube videos everyday to not only entertain herself, but to relieve herself from stress due to the pandemic.
“I knew that I was going to be really bored and I wanted to do something to self-entertain myself and eventually the videos blew off sort of creating this schedule for my everyday life,” Samantha expressed. Not only did these energetic, positive videos keep her on her feet, but it brought a smile to the faces of millions.
As Broadway was opening up to a fresh start, so did all Six of the queens and the roles they played. After Covid, Six the Musical could finally start running in New York. Unfortunately, Samantha and the others had to relearn most, if not the entire show. This also allowed her to gain a deeper perspective of “All You Wanna Do.” This hit song contains many different emotions, love, sadness, and most of all shows how vulnerable Samantha is while singing the song. Coming back from Covid-19, Samantha explains the struggles she had while learning “All You Wanna Do” all over again due to the struggles from her time of reflection over her past experiences through the 18 months of quarantine.
“I had so much free time that I had the chance to get back into therapy regularly which was helpful in general.We’ve all been away for 18 months and we’ve all gone through so much, we were all different people. Because of that, the numbers (in Six the Musical) will be different as well as a whole new version of myself and the other queens,” Samantha stated. As shown by her amazing performance as K-Howard, she created one of the most iconic queens on Broadway, causing a deeper understanding of what the role meant to her.
Samantha Pauly never gave up. She stayed hopeful throughout the pandemic, not even knowing if Six would ever open again. Even if Samantha was stuck at home, she took her career to a whole new level by doing different activities on social media platforms to continue what she loved to do the most. Perform.
Overall, everyone’s career will be different. The path you take is the path you will go. There will be different opportunities that people can take. If the opportunity doesn’t come now, it will come later. Samantha never stopped following her dreams even in the pandemic, and so can you. If you stop following your dreams you are practically throwing away everything that you love. Take Samantha as inspiration, never give up.
Broadway can be a stepping stone to something bigger. Never give up.
