In January 2012, Samantha saw a segment on Sports Center highlighting Martha Ackmann’s biography Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone,  the woman who broke the gender barrier in professional baseball. Furious that she never knew such a person existed despite all of her baseball knowledge, she immediately called her parents and reprimanded them for the gap in her education. (In their defense, they did not know either.) She immediately bought the book, decided it should be a play and put it away. During the All Star Break that same year, Sports Center ran another story on Toni Stone. Without a good excuse other than fear, she contacted Martha Ackmann’s agent that day and began the process of optioning the rights. She brought the book to one of her favorite directors and collaborators, Pam MacKinnon to see if she might be interested in working on this project, not knowing quite what the project was. In a brilliant stroke of luck, Pam said yes, and the two of them asked Lydia Diamond to write the script. In an equally brilliant stroke of luck, Lydia said yes, and Samantha co-commissioned her with Roundabout Theatre Company to write what would turn into TONI STONE.

Prior to lots of people saying “yes” and forming Frozen Rope Productions, LLC, Samantha worked on the artistic staffs of The Public Theater and Roundabout Theatre Company in New York, and as the Casting Director of the Old Globe in San Diego. She currently works at Academic Travel Abroad, an educational travel provider for some of the country’s most prestigious organizations. She is immensely proud that her son Isaac will never call her furious that he didn’t know there was a “female Jackie Robinson.”

Samantha Barrie
Frozen Rope Productions
frozenropeproductions@gmail.com
917.304.0456