Singers, songwriters, actors, partners

Sam Misner and Megan Smith have acted on stage and performed as the folk-rock duo Misner & Smith for more than a decade, but they only got to pair these two important pieces of their lives last year. That happened in the fall in Sacramento Theater Company’s production of The Grapes of Wrath—Misner & Smith wrote and performed music for the show, which they also acted in. Then earlier this spring came another first: In a production of Rapture, Blister, Burn at Capital Stage, the two finally got to act opposite each other.

“We’d been in plays together before over the years, but we’d never until Rapture, Blister, Burn played opposite each other,” says Misner (pronounced “my-zner”). “We’d maybe said a few lines to each other, but nothing like playing ex-lovers.”

That chemistry all their peers told them they had on stage together? That all kind of came naturally. They’re a real-life couple too, after all. Misner and Smith live together in Davis, and this weekend, Misner & Smith performs a hometown show as part of the fifth annual Davis Music Fest —their fourth time playing the multivenue, South by Southwest-style music festival.

Misner, who’s from the Bay Area, and Smith, who’s from Davis, met at a Shakespeare festival 13 years ago when they were both cast in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A couple years later, they were acting in a production of Woody Guthrie’s American Song in Nevada City when they realized they had a mutual interest in music—and each other.

“There was a moment in the Woodie Guthrie production where we just sang the two of us,” Smith explains. “The first time we did it in rehearsal it was clear there was something really special there.”

“Now, yeah, we live together,” she adds. “I don’t know if we’d do what we do if we didn’t.”

They’re essentially “itinerant” musicians and actors, says Smith. In the past decade, they’ve acted in hundreds of shows throughout the United States, played music on stages all over the world and are often out of town for months at a time, depending on their next project.

Even their summer schedule is a bit hectic. They just returned a few weeks ago from a small tour playing music in England, and will perform at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in July and August. Then in September, Misner will appear in King Lear at California Shakespeare Theater in Orinda, Calif.—the same place the couple first met.

But before all that, Misner & Smith will appear at the Davis Music Fest, which happens June 19 through June 21 at various venues throughout Davis.

For this show, they’ll play as a trio with long-time friend and collaborator, pedal steel guitarist Josh Yenne (Mazzy Star, Mother Hips, Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers).

Smith praised Yenne’s contributions to the group.

“He’s got a great ear and it really fills out and makes the Misner & Smith sound bigger without losing what it is at its core, which is vocal harmonies and lyrics,” she says. “It’s great to have this third element that’s electric. We’ll do a folky song but we’re also playing some rock ’n’ roll, and that pedal steel guitar has a very old-country feel—or can you can have solos and really rock out.”

No matter who else is performing with them onstage—actors or musicians—the couple always has one thing that they can fall back on when they work together.

“The thing we have that has been there the whole time we’ve known each other is the trust,” says Smith. “As soon as I step on stage and Sam’s with me I don’t have to worry. It’s taken care of.”