Samantha Dorrance

Early life

Samantha grew up in Willenhall, in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall with her younger brother and parents. Samantha was home-schooled.

Since the age of 2, Samantha has been dancing and performing at numerous dance and acting schools in the West Midlands area, which led to her dancing in pantomimes at both Wolverhampton Grand Theatre & Stafford Garrick Theatre as well as performing in many amateur dramatic productions at several locations, including Wolverhampton Grand Theatre, The Old Rep Theatre, Birmingham and The Dormston Centre in Sedgley.

Career

Samantha has entered several dancing and singing competitions, including one for the BBC children's programme, Blue Peter, which saw her get through to the semi-final live on BBC1. [1]

In 2007, Samantha won the High School Musical You're The Star! Competition on Disney Channel UK, after being voted by viewers. The prize for this was to have an all-expenses paid trip to London to record a music video. This video resulted in her appearing on her regional ITV news programme, Central Tonight. Her exceptional performance resulted in her being hand picked to audition for a role as presenter of the 2008 competition, My High School Musical, which had a slightly different format. She was picked and presented the programme alongside Brad Kavanagh.

In September 2009, Samantha successfully auditioned for the part of Wendy in the pantomime Peter Pan which was performed at the brand new Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury, Shropshire from December 2009 into January 2010. She performed alongside Emmerdale star Matt Healy who played Mr Darling and Captain Hook.

She took on the lead role of Cinderella at The Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury from December 2010 to January 2011.

Between February and April 2011 Sam played the part of Tracey in a brand new play by Alan Share called Death of A Nightingale at The New End Theatre in Hampstead, London and from June 2011 until March 2012 she toured the UK, Ireland and Luxembourg playing the lead role of Laura in the hit musical Dreamboats and Petticoats.

Samantha got her dream job as a West End leading lady, when she was transferred to London's Playhouse Theatre and then later in the year to The Wyndham's Theatre, where she carried on playing Laura in Dreamboats and Petticoats.

After leaving Dreamboats and Petticoats, Samantha went back to television where she played the part of Zoe in BBC One program Doctors and then took on the role of television presenter again for Disney Channel in a show teaching children to dance, as part of the Fit for Life Campaign which aired through the summer of 2014. At the end of that year Samantha played Snow White at Middleton Arena

In 2015 Samantha played the part of Tootsie, the best friend of CBeebies' Mr Tumble in The Tale of Mr Tumble which was a new show for the Manchester International Festival. This was first aired on the CBeebies channel in November 2015 and has been repeated sporadically since, primarily around the Christmas holidays.

In the autumn of 2015 Samantha played the part of Gertrude McFuzz in the musical Seussical for the Sell a Door company, which took her to Bridlington Spa, Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

2015/16 Samantha played Princess Jasmine alongside Paul Daniels in Aladdin at the Ipswich Regent.

2016/17 Samantha played Wendy in Peter Pan at the Octagon Theatre in Yeovil.

In the summer of 2017 Samantha landed the role of Skye in Nickelodeon's first UK & Ireland arena tour of Paw Patrol Live.

Music

Samantha is also a singer/songwriter and with her band, recorded 5 songs for her EP called Going My Way.

Discography

Credits