Katie Mallinson, Theatre Artist

"Rocks in my path? I keep them all. With them I shall build my castle." —Nemo Nox

Katie Mallinson is theatre artist and educator with a focus on dramaturgical values as a foundation for artistry, identity, and collaboration. Her practice and principles are byproducts of her upbringing in Buffalo, NY, a city on the eastern shore of Lake Erie with just the Niagara River separating it from the Canadian border. To create art there, artists learned to create opportunities. This meant seeing things for what they could be not necessarily what they were; embracing forced connections; engaging your neighbors as your most valuable resource. Influenced by her Rust Belt roots Katie’s work aims to celebrate and cultivate resourcefulness, resiliency, and the sense of humor and joy that inevitably results from finding ways to reimagine the world around you. For the past eight years, she has collaborated with many of Western New York’s best theatre companies and universities as a dramaturg, director, and administrator. Currently, Katie works as the Arts Engagement Coordinator for Shea’s Performing Arts Center, and the Literary Manager for Road Less Traveled Productions, where she is a proud Ensemble Member. She serves on the Erie County Arts and Cultural Advisory Board and on the Council for the Association for Regional Theatre Artists. Most recently, she contributed a piece “JUST.VOICES. (a collective dream)” for the December issue of The Flashpaper. Katie earned her BFA in Theatre Performance and her BA in Theatre from Niagara University and her MFA in Dramaturgy from the Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.

TAP Work:

TAP, led by the skilled Teaching Artist Team of Katie Rainey, Adrianna Guzmán, and Jay Howard, gave Katie the space, support, and resources to find focus and a renewed excitement for teaching. The comprehensive programming provided practical skills, many new ones for the digital world and refreshers on the fundamentals of teaching artistry. The teaching artists provided an invaluable community to spark imagination and encourage growth. Some of the most inspiring electives from TAP and their cohort were on building asynchronous content, curriculum building, socio-emotional learning, resourceful lesson planning, and “artivism”. Katie was able to study more in depth with Katie Rainey, Director of the Teaching Artist Project, through her fieldwork assignment on Arts Administration. This fieldwork, with its rigor as muse and motivation, pushed Katie to develop a new, socially engaged program that teaches dramaturgical skills to young womxn to reclaim the feminine narrative. Perhaps the greatest win was how TAP, through the content of the workshops but also through the creative and proficient execution of the workshops, cracked open the possibilities of teaching artistry in the digital landscape—and made it fun again.

Most Memorable TAP Moment:

"I’m still in awe of how much we did in the time we had together—how much we learned, explored, discussed, and created together. What’s been most memorable is not one specific moment, but the aggregate moments of connection with fellow teaching artists. In a year that has kept us apart, TAP gave us the forum to connect on our challenges and triumphs, questions and ideas. If I had to pull one moment to illustrate this, it would be during the workshop that Adriana led on making art with what you have around you, which gave us the chance to share a moment of personal creation together even while apart."

Find out more about Katie here:

• Katie's most recent creative piece appears in the December Issue of The Flashpaper