Samuel A. Miller

1952 - 2018

Miller, Samuel A.
Born in Providence, RI in 1952 to Dian Kaufman Reynolds and the late Daniel B. Miller. He died in Boston, MA on May 1, 2018. Sam is survived by his devoted wife Anne Boardman Miller of Providence, RI, his cherished sons Alex Miller of Washington, D.C. and Owen Miller of New York City, his mother Dian Reynolds of Wellfleet, MA, his brother Senator Joshua Miller, sister-in-law Nancy Miller and nephew Nicholas Miller of Cranston, RI, and brother Adam Miller of Wellfleet, MA. He was predeceased by his brother Zachary Miller and stepfather Edwin Reynolds.
Raised on the East Side of Providence, Sam's early interest in the arts began at Trinity Repertory Company, where his mother worked as a stage manager. He also played the role of Tiny Tim in the first two productions of A Christmas Carol.
Sam graduated from Wesleyan University in 1975 with a B.A. in Theater. He was brilliant, innovative and intuitive. He sustained a remarkable seven-year remission after treatment for multiple myeloma. From 2016 to 2018, he collaborated to establish the CODA/2021 project at UCLA Center for the Art of Performance. He returned to Wesleyan in 2014 as Co-Founder/Director of the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP). He served as President of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) where from October 2010 to January 2016 he produced the River to River Festival. He served as President of Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), a ten-year initiative to improve conditions for individual artists in the US. He also served for a decade as Executive Director of New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), where he founded the National Dance Project (NDP). Sam was Executive Director of the Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival. His input sparked MassMoCA's successful plan to include live performance spaces. Sam was Managing Director of Pilobolus (1982-1986.) He was a trustee of Danspace Project (NYC) and AMRITA (Phnom Penh) and sat on the advisory boards of the Creative Capital Initiative (CCI), Reggie Wilson's Fist & Heel, and ODC/SF. He was Senior Advisor to the Philadelphia Contemporary project. He produced the "Dance, the Spirit of Cambodia" tour (2001) and the Eiko and Koma "Retrospective" (2009-2011). He was a consultant to The Ford Foundation, A.W.Mellon Foundation and The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. In 2017, Sam Miller was honored with the insignia of the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Republic.
Since childhood, Sam's deepest passion was poetry. He was a poet himself, as well as a champion for poetry. He conferred with Robert Pinsky on the Favorite Poem Project at its inception.
A public memorial is planned later this fall in New York City.
The Miller family requests that memorial contributions be made in Sam's name to The Wesleyan Memorial Fund at Wesleyan University in support of the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP). Please send gifts to the care of Marcy Herlihy, University Relations 300 High Street, Middletown, CT 06459.
Also appreciated are contributions in honor of Samuel Miller for the Philbrick Poetry Event, Providence Athenaeum, 251 Benefit St, Providence RI 02903 https://providenceathenaeum.org/support/giving/