Bio:
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Quick Facts:
Hometown: Oakwood, Ohio
Education: BFA Elon University
Currently Located: On Tour with Come From Away, next basing in NYC/LA
Previously Located: Honolulu, HI and Seattle, Washington
Occupation: Actor/Teaching Artist
Awards: Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Orchid Award),
Best Supporting Actress in a Musical (Pearl Award), Nominated Best Actress in a Musical (Footlight Awards)
Voice Type: Mix Belt/Soprano
Height: 5'8"
Fun fact: At age 9 a friend's mom helped my friends and I trade mark our name, StoryGirls, as we collaboratively wrote plays at recess, and convinced the principal to let us sell tickets and perform a couple of our plays in the main stage which was the cafetorium.
3 words people pretty consistently use to describe me: passionate, confident, and sunshine.
My Story:
Hometown: Oakwood, Ohio
Education: BFA Elon University
Currently Located: On Tour with Come From Away, next basing in NYC/LA
Previously Located: Honolulu, HI and Seattle, Washington
Occupation: Actor/Teaching Artist
Awards: Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Orchid Award),
Best Supporting Actress in a Musical (Pearl Award), Nominated Best Actress in a Musical (Footlight Awards)
Voice Type: Mix Belt/Soprano
Height: 5'8"
Fun fact: At age 9 a friend's mom helped my friends and I trade mark our name, StoryGirls, as we collaboratively wrote plays at recess, and convinced the principal to let us sell tickets and perform a couple of our plays in the main stage which was the cafetorium.
3 words people pretty consistently use to describe me: passionate, confident, and sunshine.
My Story:
- Grew up in Ohio and went to CCM Prep through High School-> Elon University BFA -> 10 years working as an actor/teaching artist in the Seattle, WA Theatre Scene -> Vanlife/Hawaii respite for two years-> Come From Away North American National Tour--> NYC/LA
- While working at Hangar Theater in upstate NYC, I fell in love with the idea of working on both sides of the table in an outdoorsy environment. After half a year on tour with MCT, I landed in Seattle with a very large suitcase and a lot of moxy. 8 or 10 years and 50 some roles and thousands of hours of teaching, and a few hundred hours of directing later, the PNW had become my home. I'd made friends that became family and done projects that fulfilled my childhood dream of being an actor.
- When not on stage, I founded a dramatic arts program for a research based foundation, through which I had the opportunity to produce and direct over a dozen performances, teach at international conferences across the nation, write and produce new works with both students and other local artists. I got to navigate the theater management side of the business including budgets, hiring, leading teams, and project planning and on top of it, collecting and presenting research on empathy, student voice, academic performance, and other positive outcomes of dramatic arts programming.
- In my dual career, I have worked as a teaching artist or theater director and been in the classroom thousands of hours at numerous theater companies including Seattle Children's Theater, Seattle Opera, and Village Theater. I've taught multiple masterclasses for universities such as the University of Washington and Eastman School of Performing Arts.
- When the pandemic closed our show during a Q2Q rehearsal and I couldn't do theater for a while, I took the break to pursue my other passion for outdoors and adventure travel. My fiance and I saw 48 national parks, snowboarded 111 days, built a campervan, and other such recreational bliss before making a temporary home next to my favorite surf break in Honolulu, HI where around a couple of shows as an actor, I applied my skills to events management for Hawaii Stage and Lighting and Hawaii Opera Theatre.
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Behind the table...
- I bought a notepad from Samuel French with this quote "But what I really want to do is direct" and I've never forgotten it. I studied musical theater, leadership, and directing at Elon University and was the first student to direct and self-produce a musical on the main stage there. I passed my how-to-self-produce at Elon handbook on to the APO Honors Fraternity and student works are still going strong!
- In 2016, my long time friends at Village Theater let me take the reigns to diret a production of Oliver and we not only broke the box office record at Village Theatre Kidstage but increased retention from show to classes by a record number. Also at my beloved artitic home at Village Everett, the new musical class I was brought on to pioneer was the first and only class to have such a successful musical written that Village Theatre wrote a new budget line with the board in order to give it a full production in their young adult season! So proud of those amazing students and my co-teacher!
- In 2018 I started a theatre company collective called ENROOT for Taproot Theatre and raised money in three events/staged readings for our first full season before the pandemic put a halt on it.
- Stepping Stones and Sheltered are my two plays that have been produced in festivals with GhostLight Theatricals and TPS Studios. I co-wrote 8.5 Minutes and Daylight which were given a workshop performance at foundry10 and Daylight was performed at Taproot Theatre's Jewel Studio. I'm currently working on a new musical 78 Minutes with my writing partners after our NAMT submission.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild, and precious life?" - Mary Oliver