Samuel Buggeln is the New York-based Artistic Associate for Portland Stage in Maine, where he oversees the company’s casting and has directed many of their most successful shows, including God of Carnage, Bach at Leipzig, The 39 Steps, Indoor/Outdoor, Sleuth, Wait Until Dark, and Noises Off.  Other regional work includes acclaimed productions at the Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca (Speech and Debate, boom), Capital Rep (A Christmas Carol, Friend of a Friend), Mason Street Warehouse, (The Food Chain, As Bees in Honey Drown), and StageWorks/Hudson (Dirty Blonde, Rites of Passage, Play by Play).

In New York City, Buggeln regularly works on new plays at the Lark Play Development Center, and is a long-time Artistic Associate with the Obie-winning New Ohio Theatre (formerly Soho Think Tank at the Ohio Theatre.)  Work at the Ohio includes Cressida Among the Greeks, which was nominated for a Drama Desk award, as well as Hater (his original translation of Moliere’s Le Misanthrope), The Flight of Icarus, The Last Days of Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Blue Eyes Black Hair, the Off-Broadway premiere of Rum & Vodka by Conor McPherson, and extensive work with the late, influential adobe theatre company.

Other new work developed and directed in New York includes Bedbugs!!!, an 80’s hair metal sci-fi musical currently under development for Off-Broadway (the recipient of 5 jury awards from the New York Musical Theatre Festival) and Go-Go Kitty, GO!, which played at the Lucille Lortel Theatre as part of FringeNYC and received the Best Play FringeFirst award from among 200 shows in that festival.  Other New York work has appeared at the Atlantic, Rattlestick, Hypothetical, New York Theatre Workshop, Theater for the New City, HERE, Charas/El Bohio, Makor, Expanded Arts, and Clubbed Thumb.

Before moving to New York, Buggeln co-founded Vancouver’s Liquid Theatre, a company devoted to site-specific work.  For Liquid, Buggeln directed 2-2-Tango, Come On! and The Two-Headed Roommate in various locales.  He also directed Vancouver’s long-running commercial production of The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me.

Buggeln has received grants from the Peg Sandtvoord Foundation and Dramatists’ Guild, is an alumnus of the Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab, and was a guest artist with New York Theatre Workshop’s summer residency at Dartmouth College. He is a former Casting Associate at New York Theatre Workshop, where he was casting associate on world premieres including John Guare’s Lydie Breeze and Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul.  He has been a frequent faculty guest director and teacher at SUNY Albany and the NYU Tisch School of the Arts.