Samantha Pauly

Samantha Megan Pauly is an American actress and singer born in 1989 in Bettendorf, Iowa. Her Broadway credits include SIX: The Musical, Bat Out of Hell, and The Great Gatsby, and she received a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble in 2022.

Pauly attended Pleasant Valley High School in Riverdale, Iowa from 2004 to 2008, where she did not develop an interest in musical theatre until her junior year. During high school she performed in productions of The Pajama Game as Gladys and Chicago as Velma Kelly, the latter of which was selected to perform at the International Thespian Festival in June 2008. She went on to study at Viterbo University, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music Theatre and Dance in 2012. Her training roles included Rona Lisa Peretti in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Joanne in Company, and Cathy Hiatt in The Last Five Years.

While still at Viterbo, Pauly appeared in a 2010 Summerstage production of Rent at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse's Toland Theatre, playing Mimi. Following her 2012 graduation, she took on the lead role of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse. In 2014 she portrayed The Mistress in Evita at the Jedlicka Theatre, and the following year she played Teen Cee Cee in Beaches alongside Presley Ryan and Shoshana Bean at the same production. Also in 2015, she performed as an alternate Eva Perón in Evita at the Marriott Theatre. In January 2016 she played Amber in a regional production of Hairspray at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora, Illinois, and later that year appeared in an episode of Chicago P.D. titled "Big Friends, Big Enemies." In 2017 she played Betsy in Honeymoon in Vegas at the Marriott Theatre and Jovie in Elf at the Paramount Theatre.

In 2018, Pauly was cast as Valkyrie in the North American tour of Bat Out of Hell: The Musical. The tour opened at the Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto on October 16, 2018, and was originally scheduled to run through July 7, 2019, at the AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas. After a brief extension was announced, the tour was abruptly postponed and ultimately canceled, with the cast's final performance taking place on November 3, 2018, at the conclusion of the Toronto engagement. Pauly has stated that the experience nearly led her to quit performing. Later in 2018 she portrayed Eva Perón as a principal at the Westport Country Playhouse.

In February 2019, Pauly received callbacks for both Six and Evita and was cast in both productions. She made her debut as Katherine Howard in Six on May 14, 2019, at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, temporarily leaving the production on June 23, 2019, to star as Eva Perón in Evita at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, where she performed from August 2 through September 21, 2019. She returned to Six in the Citadel Theatre production on November 1, 2019, and remained with the show through its transfer to Broadway. The production began previews at the Lena Horne Theatre on February 13, 2020, and was scheduled to open on March 12, 2020, when Broadway theatres were required to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Pauly returned to the show when it officially reopened on September 17, 2021. A live cast recording featuring her vocals was released on May 6, 2022, and was nominated for Best Musical Theater Album at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards in 2023. In June 2022, Pauly and the other principal cast members of Six received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble. She departed the production on December 4, 2022.

During 2021, Pauly appeared as an ensemble member in the online benefit concert of Ratatouille the Musical and was featured on the concept album for Little Black Book, a musical inspired by the life of Heidi Fleiss. In August 2021 she portrayed Ophelia in a musical adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, and on February 4, 2022, she appeared in a concert version of A Girl I Know at Feinstein's/54 Below. From August 22 through 27, 2023, she played Mimi Marquez in Rent at the UC Davis Health Pavilion Theater at Music Circus. In September 2023 she was announced as Jordan Baker in a musical adaptation of The Great Gatsby, a role she had auditioned for in March 2023. The production ran from October 12 to November 12, 2023, and she reprised the role when the Broadway production opened at the Broadway Theatre on April 25, 2024.

Pauly married in 2014, and in 2022 the couple filed for divorce. In 2024 she participated in a Playbill Pride event, where she described herself as a queer woman. She adopted a retired racing greyhound named Dale while living in Chicago; he died on December 9, 2024. She also has a short-haired chihuahua named Scampi, adopted in late 2022, and has stated that if she were not working in theatre she would want to work for a dog rescue.