Bio:
Quick Facts:
Hometown: Oakwood, Ohio
Education: BFA Elon University
Currently Located: Honolulu, Hawaii
Previously Located: Seattle, Washington
Occupation: Actor, Director, Educator
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"
My Story:
Hometown: Oakwood, Ohio
Education: BFA Elon University
Currently Located: Honolulu, Hawaii
Previously Located: Seattle, Washington
Occupation: Actor, Director, Educator
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"
My Story:
- Ohioan-> Elon University BFA -> Seattle, WA Theatre Scene -> Travel -> Hawaii -> next up, Come From Away, National Tour!
- After working at Hangar Theater in upstate NYC, I decided to pursue theater in an outdoorsy environment. I arrived in Seattle by bus, knowing no one, to start a career as a theater artist in the PNW. It was my goal to perform in every major theatre and I wound up playing 50+ roles in the past ten years (and somehow saved money.) My goal was to always work-- and being a multi-hyphenate performer-director-educator based in the PNW who waited to take her equity card for a while, I was able to do so.
- 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. I fell in love and my fiance and I traveled in a rooftop tent and in our own DIY converted campervan, spent a year and half living on the road seeing 38 National Parks, snowboarding at 22 mountains, and spent six months on island time. I then moved to Honolulu, HI and transitioned my career in events management for Hawaii Stage and Lighting and Hawaii Opera Theatre.
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 the handbook on to the APO Honors Fraternity I was leading and I am told student works have flourished since my tenure.
- My production of Oliver, broke the box office record at Village Theatre Kidstage and my new musical class 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.
- 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.
- (Fun childhood fact: At age 9 I started a small theatre company whose name I trade marked, StoryGirls, and had my friends collaboratively write plays with me at recess, convincing admin to let us sell tickets and perform them in the main stage auditorium. )
- 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