KATY HAHN

Theatre Artist & Educator

CONTACT: katy.a.hahn@gmail.com

Katy is based in Cedar Falls, Iowa, located on the ancestral land of the Báxoǰe or Bah Kho-Je (Iowa), oθaakiiwaki‧hina‧ki (Sauk) and Meškwahki·aša·hina (Fox), Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Sioux), Umóⁿhoⁿ (Omaha), and Hocąk (Ho-Chunk) people.

MISSION:

to use accessible, equitable, and sustainable practices to spark creativity, inspire confidence, cultivate empathy, build community, and launch discourse.

CURRENT & UPCOMING PRODUCTIONS:

Katy is directing Ordinary Days at the University of Northern Iowa, opening October 4, 2024.

More information at the following link: TheatreUNI presents “Ordinary Days” | inside UNI

Katy appears in Friendly Faces – Ep. 5 The Wishing Well, which is playing at the Des Moines Underground Film Festival on November 10th at 1:00 PM.

More information at the following link: Des Moines Underground Film Festival – The Varsity Cinema (varsitydesmoines.com)

Katy’s Involvement in the Iowa Theatre Community

Born in Iowa to a pair of artist-educators, Katy ultimately returned to raise her two children in the state that raised her.

Katy is actively involved in the Iowa theatre community as a performer, director, teacher, coach, choreographer, and consultant, with specialties in acting, voice, text, accent work, and theatrical intimacy. She has worked with Iowa companies such as Riverside Theatre, Crooked Path Theatre, Working Group Theatre, Fourth Room Theatre, and Iowa Conservatory (Iowa City); Nolte Academy and City Circle Theatre Company (Coralville); Mirrorbox Theatre, Revival Theatre Company, Theatre Cedar Rapids, The Classics at Brucemore, SPT Theatre, The Foundry Performance Lab, and Urban Theatre Project of Iowa (Cedar Rapids); the Iowa Theatre Artists Company (Amana); Webster City Community Theatre (Webster City); Mason City Community Theatre (Mason City); Waterloo Community Playhouse (Waterloo); and Cedar Falls Community Theatre (Cedar Falls).

Teacher certification in the Michael Chekhov Technique – Great Lakes Michael Chekhov Consortium (expected to complete June 2025)

Intermediate Diploma from Theatrical Intimacy Education (July 2024)

Mental Health First Aid Certification – Youth (most recently 2022), Adult (most recently 2024)

Theatrical Intimacy Education – Educator Advocate Program (completed in 2023)

Month-long course on Meisner Technique (completed 2015)

MFA in Acting from Florida Atlantic University (graduated 2015)

Acting Apprenticeship with Riverside Theatre in the Park (completed 2014)

BA in Theatre Performance, Music from the University of Northern Iowa (graduated 2010)

Katy’s continued education and professional development is ongoing. She has completed multiple training intensives in New York, Chicago, and the Twin Cities, including three with Shakespeare & Company. She continues to train through online and in-person workshops and classes every year.

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 (an area chapter of the state-wide LGBTQ+ organization) 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 the children’s book Antiracist Baby.

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.

She 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, including unarmed, knife, single sword, and rapier and dagger.

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

Katy sings as a mezzo-soprano/alto, and plays alto and tenor saxophone, piano, and a little ukelele.

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.

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.

Professional musical theatre 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 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.

Katy has amassed extensive experience as an accent coach and has been referred to as “the premier accent coach in the state of Iowa, if not the region.”

Headshots by Alisabeth Von Presley of Tint – A Visual Company (whatsyourtint.com), 2024.