He has also directed in the West End and at Ipswich, Canterbury and Greenwich, as well as at LAMDA, RADA and Webber Douglas.

[4] He trained as an actor at LAMDA (1962–64) turning to directing with the formation of the Worcester Repertory Company in 1967.

(Sam Walters in conversation with Marsha Hanlon for the Orange Tree Theatre appeal brochure in 1991).

Walters won a Time Out Award for his 1987–88 season in the old theatre, being described as a "theatrical totter", and in 1989 was awarded a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship, part of which he spent in Prague during the Velvet Revolution, and part in Moscow and Leningrad.

He and his wife Auriol Smith received the Freedom of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in December 2014.