The 45 minute solo performance of A Brave Sliver of Light will be premiering in Portland, OR at CoHo Theatre July 25-27, 2025.

From the halls of Manhattan’s Dakota Apartments to the remote trails of mountain ultramarathons, Samantha de la Vega’s life is anything but ordinary. In her powerful solo show A Brave Sliver of Light, she brings this epic journey to the stage with raw physicality, vivid storytelling, and a style that is both luminous and grounded.

Blending her eccentric and adventurous upbringing with the fire and grit of an ultrarunner, de la Vega’s performance is a visceral exploration of survival and strength. Ultramarathons are grueling sporting events, ranging from 26 miles to more than 100 miles. They are often held on rugged trails, mountainous terrain, or in extreme weather conditions. These events test physical stamina, mental resilience, and require strategic pacing, and specific nutrition and hydration plans. Participants often run for hours—or even days—pushing the boundaries of human endurance in a celebration of perseverance, self-discovery, and the raw power of the human spirit.  “There’s something about an ultra that makes the fight physical,” de la Vega says. “It gets me out of my mind and into my body, where I have a chance to beat the demons.” In this race of endurance and reckoning, the audience is invited to run alongside her as she moves not only through mountains, but through memory, voice, and transformation, forging a path as visceral as it is emotional.

A LIFE LIKE NO OTHER

Born into a world of dramatic contrasts, Samantha grew up in the legendary Dakota Apartments in NYC—where she lived with her grandmother across the hall from John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Her grandmother was Broadway actress Elena Karam and her grandfather was John Wiley Hill, who co-founded the global PR firm Hill & Knowlton, the very agency that inspired Mad Men. Yet behind the opulence was neglect and chaos.

Samantha spent much of her childhood in what she describes as “solitary confinement,” leading to deep emotional upheaval. This later spiraled into addiction and a brutal fight for survival. Her journey took her to a tough stint on the back streets of San Francisco, then to a ghetto in Mexico City, and finally, back to healing. Her memoir, Falling Up from the Bottom, chronicles this fall—and more importantly, the climb back. Today, she is a successful Fortune 500 executive, an accomplished ultrarunner, and an artist reclaiming her story on her own terms.

But this is not a show about trauma. It’s about transcendence.

ART AND FAMILY LEGACY

Creativity runs deep in de la Vega’s family. All of her many siblings are artists, performers, and designers, as were her mother and father. Her late sister, Lhasa de Sela, was an internationally acclaimed, platinum-selling singer whose haunting voice and ethereal presence touched fans across the globe before her passing in 2010. Another sister, Sky de Sela, continues the family’s performance lineage as a Paris-based director of clown arts and physical theater artist known for her poetic and whimsical performances. A founding member of the international circus collective Pocheros, (of which Lhasa was also a member), Sky blends movement, emotion, and comedy to explore the human experience with heart, humor, and a uniquely tender theatrical style.

Similarly, De la Vega pulls threads of physical expression into the very core of her stagecraft. The result is a performance that is part storytelling, part embodiment—a solo piece that pulses with theatrical risk, and emotional range.