Katy attended her first play at age 2 and started performing at age 5. She continued to be involved in theatre throughout her childhood in school and community theatre settings. Her upbringing is central to her value system as a mother, theatre educator, and teaching artist.

Katy began teaching theatre with her dad as a summer camp counselor at the age of 15, and has since taught dozens of youth theatre camps, classes, and workshops in Mason City, Webster City, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Mt. Vernon, and Coralville, including semester-long courses at Theatre Cedar Rapids and Nolte Academy, and trimester courses (hybrid and in person) for the early iteration of the Iowa Conservatory during the pandemic.

Theatre that focuses on social issues has been a primary focus throughout Katy’s artistic life, beginning in childhood.

At the age of 10, Katy played the title role in a production of Annie that partnered with the Make-a-Wish Foundation. When she was 17, she played the lead in the Iowa premiere of an award-winning new play called Up the Waterspout by Ryan Borcherding, which spread awareness of teen peer pressure, mental illness, self-harm, and suicide. In college, Katy readdressed these themes in directing Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead through the UNI Student Theatre Association.

In 2016, Katy performed in the first national tour of Out of Bounds by Jennifer Fawcett, for which she also led forum theatre workshops and talkbacks with middle school and high school students about cyberbullying and bystander intervention techniques. This tour consisted of over 50 performances in multiple venues across Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Nevada, New Jersey, and New York, including a week-long residency at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas.

Later in 2016, Katy collaborated with OneIowa North to produce and direct The Laramie Project in her hometown of Mason City, IA. In 2018, Katy joined forces with OneIowa North again to direct Urinetown the Musical. Both productions were successful fundraisers for the Craig W. Hickok Memorial Scholarship Fund.

In 2018, Katy worked with community college music and theatre students in Waterloo, IA to devise a free public performance based on the book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierly. In 2021 she used a similar process to devise a piece with young adults in Iowa City and Coralville based on literature that focused on teaching young children how to discuss social issues and transform society.

Katy looks forward to collaborating with the UNI School of Music to develop a new performance piece for the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center in Fall 2026, celebrating the history of the Cedar Valley for UNI’s sesquicentennial.

Katy started taking dance classes through the Studio of Performing Arts at age 5, studying ballet, jazz, tap, and modern dance throughout her youth.

She was also active in sports, including volleyball, basketball, softball, cheerleading, and track, qualifying for events in the Iowa State Track Meet and Drake Relays as a sprinter/hurdler in multiple years. Her experience as an athlete has informed her as an actor, educator, and director, particularly for directing projects like The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe (which she has now directed twice) and Bully by Amina Henry.

Katy performed in her high school show choir and danced in the annual summer musicals, including playing Ariel in Footloose her senior year. Her first mainstage role in college was playing a female version of the character Larry (the choreographer) in A Chorus Line as a freshman.

Katy has continued to train in various forms of dance and movement as an adult, from African dance to body percussion to swing and ballroom, as well as yoga and acroyoga.  

She has experience doing stage combat in production (for roles such as Hal in Henry IV Part 1 and Laertes in Hamlet), including unarmed, knife, single sword, and rapier and dagger. She has also trained in basic tumbling and Commedia dell’Arte.

Movement techniques studied include Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method, Laban Movement Analysis, Viewpoints, Suzuki, and others.

Katy will be mentoring a student choreographer next season at UNI for Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.

Katy sings as a mezzo-soprano (E3-B6) and plays alto and tenor saxophone at the advanced level. She can also play a little piano and ukelele. Katy has played the piano onstage in three plays (as Amelia in The Summerland Project, Elena in Uncle Vanya, and Lizzy Bennet in Pride and Prejudice). She even learned a little oboe to play Amanda Blue in A Feminine Ending.

As a teenager, Katy participated in music ensembles such as concert choir, chamber choir, madrigal choir, show choir, symphonic band, jazz band, pep band, and marching band, as well as honor choirs and honor bands. She served as drum major for two years, was the only student in her grade to play in her school’s top jazz band throughout all four years of high school and holds the unique distinction of having been selected for both the Iowa All-State Chorus and the Iowa All-State Band. Katy performed in all four summer musicals during her high school years, culminating in playing Ariel in Footloose her senior year.

In college, Katy minored in music and worked on mainstage theatre productions as a vocal arranger, music director, and conductor. She also performed with UNI’s choral ensembles and jazz bands. She has studied saxophone with Chris Merz and Russell Kramer, and studied classical and musical theatre singing with Rosemary Gast, Laura Wayth, Jeff Brich, Marie Schmidt, Cindy Shadrick, and Joel Everist.

Professional musical theatre performance credits include Side by Side by Sondheim with the Atlantic Artists Ensemble, The Robber Bridegroom with Big Country Dinner Theatre, and the original cast of Tic Tic Tic – A Timely Musical with SPT Theatre, among other revues, green shows, and cabaret performances.

Katy has taught musical theatre classes and private lessons, conducted recitals, and directed several musicals, including Urinetown, Legally Blonde, and Ordinary Days. She has also mentored student composers and sound designers.

Next season at UNI she will direct Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.

Katy discovered a passion and proclivity for voice, speech, and accent work in graduate school.

She has formally studied the vocal production techniques of Catherine Fitzmaurice and Kristin Linklater, as well as the speech methodologies of Edith Skinner and Dudley Knight, and is fluent in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Katy’s method of teaching and coaching accents involves getting to know actors and their learning styles before entering the work through one of the “five points of fascination:” phonetics, mechanics, musicality, vocabulary, or vibe.

She has amassed extensive experience in the past decade, and has become the go-to accent coach in the Corridor. The UNI professional assessment committee has referred to her as “the premier accent coach in the state of Iowa, if not the region.”

Katy began her formal education in theatrical intimacy in 2020, and has done multiple training programs and events with Theatrical Intimacy Education and Intimacy Directors and Coordinators.

With IDC, Katy is working through the Intimacy Accelerator Program, and has attended the first inaugural Intimacy Professional Summit in Minneapolis, MN.

With TIE, Katy has completed the Educator Advocate Program in Spartanburg, South Carolina and a Weekend Workshop in Chicago. In addition to this in-person training, she has completed enough online coursework to earn the intermediate level diploma. She is over halfway through the courses required for both the advanced and advanced plus diplomas as well. She looks forward to attending the 2025 Symposium in Chicago this August.

Katy serves as the resident intimacy director, choreographer, and consultant at the University of Northern Iowa. As part of this role, she built and maintains an online Best Practices module for students, faculty, staff, and guest artists working on mainstage productions. At UNI, Katy has choreographed intimacy for The Play That Goes Wrong, Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Heathers the Musical, Ordinary Days, and Airness. 

Katy has also presented workshops and served as an intimacy choreographer and consultant for community theatres such as Waterloo Community Playhouse, Cedar Falls Community Theatre, and Webster City Community Theatre.