BIO
I was born the seventh child of a Kansas farm boy-turned military flight instructor and a stylish journalism major from Illinois. My parents met in Denver, Colorado at an airplane club where they both flew small planes. I always found this unabashedly romantic and marveled that my mother was a lady pilot in the 1940s. My father, who never stopped reinventing himself, became a commercial rose farmer in a small town along Colorado’s front range when I was five. It was there that I enjoyed an idyllic childhood of Friday-night-football games and endless outdoor adventures in the fresh mountain air, playing on tractors, tire swings, and forts made in bales of hay.
As a child, I loved all things performing and visual arts and would craft holiday gifts, sew clothing and costumes, create basement haunted houses with by cousins, and basically Elmer glue anything to anything. I choreographed my first Isadora Duncan-styled scarf dance for the 3rd grade talent show and was quite serious as I directed the 5th grade production of A Christmas Carol in which I also played The Ghost of Christmas Present complete with birthday candles wired into my evergreen crown.
High School involved every school play, show choir, dance, student leadership, and a lot of visual art. I was excited to win the Scholastic Arts Portfolio Contest for Colorado way back in 1985. For a little while I could not decide whether to head into visual or performing arts – but as one can only tap dance and high kick for so long – I decided to pursue a career in Musical Theatre.
After earning a Bachelor of the Arts in Musical Theatre with a Minor in Dance and technical emphasis in Costume Design from the University of Northern Colorado, supplemented by summer dance study with The American Dance Machine and at Pointe Park College, I was fortunate to work professionally as an actor, choreographer, and designer at several theatres in Colorado before moving to Dallas, Texas where I worked at several regional and stock theatres earning my Actors Equity Card. Early roles included Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors for Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, Squeaky Fromme in the regional premier of Assassins at Theatre Three in Dallas and Sally Bowles in Cabaret for Theatre Arlington, as well as work for Dallas Theatre Center, Dallas Children's Theatre and Southern Methodist University.
The big move to New York City came in 1994! While auditioning, temping, and serving as room manager at the famed Don't Tell Mama piano bar, I studied the Meisner acting process with Susanne Esper and worked with Ensemble Studio Theatre, Lincoln Center Directors’ Lab and Abingdon Theatre Company. Roles during this time included Titania in A Midsummer’s Night Dream directed by Josh Tarjan and the title role in Rosemary by James O’Connor directed by James Alexander Bond for Abingdon Theatre Company. Directing Credits during this time included Arms and the Man for Boomerang Theatre Company, Pippin for New Youth Performing Arts, as well as staged readings for Abingdon Theatre Company and Ensemble Studio Theatre. For two years I also worked with three very talented women, Julia Horvath, Rabeah Ghaffari, and Kudra Owens in a production company called FORTUNA. In addition to several small showcases and event performances, FORTUNA produced a new show - a cabaret/drama - or "caberama" as we coined it - entitled D'Illusion in which I portrayed Louise Brooks as she shared the stage with Marlene Dietrich, Josephine Baker, and a young woman searching for her mother. This production at The Duplex, NYC's famed piano bar was well received, but my talented collaborators were soon off to do work in L.A., and Europe, and have forged impressive careers.
In the early 2000’s, I focused my time and talents on a couture line of handmade tiaras – Chloe’s Crown. My creations were featured on the cover of Modern Bride and in editorials of several of the top Bridal Publications including Brides, Bridal Guide, and Violet Magazine. My clients were from all over the US and a few international. I was also commissioned works by the Met Opera Gift Shop and couture designer Jane Wilson Marquis. However, a new project, in the form of a bouncing baby boy, soon became my main focus.
Our family moved from Brooklyn to the lower Hudson Valley town of Peekskill in 2003 after the birth of our son. A couple years later, after the birth of our daughter, I began work as director, designer and teaching artist in many studios and schools throughout the Hudson Valley, including Garrison Union Free School, Peekskill High School and Hudson River Performing Arts.
From 2010-2016, I served as Executive Director of EMBARK|Peekskill, a performing and literary arts organization which I co-founded with actor, director, producer Sol Miranda. The mission of EMBARK was to provide space for artists and writers to teach, collaborate, create and perform. EMBARK served as producer and host to well over 100 performances of all disciplines as well as affordable classes taught by a wide variety of independent teaching artists. Not only did I teach dance, musical theatre and helped lead improvisation classes at EMBARK, I also directed several productions including The Fantasticks and Eve Ensler’s Emotional Creature. For six years EMBARK produced the Midsummer Night’s Firefly & Fairy Festival, a joyous outdoor family event I conceived after being inspired by the Victorian gazebo in Depew Park in Peekskill.
In order to better understand the realm of nonprofit management, I earned a Masters of the Arts in Arts Administration in 2015 from an innovative program at Goucher College, just outside of Baltimore. This limited residency/distance learning program allowed me to keep working on my nonprofit, while caring for my family, and continuing to direct and occasionally perform in shows.
In 2016, I was appointed Executive Director of Garrison Art Center, located on the lovely banks of the Hudson River in Garrison, New York. GAC is a well-established community arts center with a nearly 60-year history of providing visual arts education, exhibition and events. As GAC is a small nonprofit, I wore many hats in this role: handling financial management, HR and staff management, some graphic design and marketing, grants writing and donor relations, events co-coordination, board development, and so much more. In 2019, I produced the region's first immersive art exhibition called Hello Neighbor, bringing together 12 principal artists and over 40 contributing artists creating 13 unique environments transforming GAC's two small galleries into a peek into "the worlds of others and other worlds."
Through my work at EMBARK and GAC, I had the opportunity to engage and partner with many other community entities including the HV Gateway Chamber of Commerce, The Peekskill Youth Bureau & Rotary Club, the Field and Desmond Fisch Libraries and Regional School Districts. I enjoy connecting with many different communities and consider collaborative endeavors and leadership as my top strength.
I currently live in a historical home in Yorktown Heights with my husband Michael, a sixth grade Humanities teacher in NYC, and both of my children are now in college. I love maintaining our rustic English flower garden, trying my hand at mixing historic and contemporary decor, and taking walks in the woods with our dogs: Drake, a flat-coated retriever/border collie and Bonnie, a rat terrier mix.
Theatre, art and design are the focus of this next chapter. Katie has recently founded THEATRE IN THE WOOD, a new theatre production company. The mission is to establish a small professional theatre company housed on a lower Hudson Valley site which will pair traditional and innovative musical theatre productions with exquisite rustic food and special drink in a setting that will transport and transform. The site will also host events, special nights of music, comedy, classic film and improv. Please visit the website and join our mailing list our for updates!
