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Katie K Robinson

Biography

Highlights of Young Scholar Experience: Katie says she wears her heart on her sleeve. What you see is what you get and what you get from Katie is eternal gratitude to the Foundation for the experience the Young Scholars Program provided. “As cheesy as it sounds, I owe a lot of what I am to the Foundation.” The theater programs she participated in reinforced her decision to make that her career choice. First there was CivicWeek 2007 working with the homeless in Chicago, then her involvement with the Advance Mentorship Program at Yale University and finally several weeks in France to study drama. And, of course, it was through the Foundation that Katie was able to transfer from her small high school in rural Georgia to a prep school in Massachusetts.

Profile: For years the Georgia-born Katie said she loathed her southern accent. The future actress said she would watch the national news each night and emulate the way the anchors would speak with a more “neutral” accent. It took a while, but Katie finally exorcised herself from the dreaded “y’all” which caused her New England prep school classmates to break into good-natured laughter. Not too many people in Natick, Massachusetts sounded like Katie. Perhaps that self-imposed diction lesson had something to do with her decision to make theater her career as she has become expert at many dialects. It seems that everyone knows Katie at Walnut Hill School where she has thrived both in the classroom as well as with various extracurricular activities. She is known for being outspoken and an instant friend to anyone who meets her. And that Southern accent that she tried so hard to change? “Today, of course, I like my accent, and people find it funny that I can easily switch between a ‘neutral’ accent and a southern one.”

Inspiration: Katie said she’s “always been the kid with the soft spot for everything, letting my emotions show outwardly faster than other people do.” It took her theater teacher at Walnut Hill School, Naomi Bailis, to show Katie that it’s alright to be sensitive but to also have a thick enough skin to be able to control it.

Aspiration: Theater is Katie’s passion, be it directing, writing, performing or in the nuts and bolts of set and lighting design. Somehow, someway, Katie will be involved in theater arts.

Making a Difference: Katie views each day as another chance to make a difference. If it’s not working with the AIDS Walk in Boston, she’ll be volunteering at a local elementary school where she began a program to help immerse young students in theater. But what Katie is most proud of happened in early 2010 when she was selected to direct two one-act plays at her school. Every piece of the theatrical process was in her capable hands: casting, running rehearsals, set and lighting design, costuming and the direction of both plays.

Accolades: For most of her time at the exclusive Walnut Hill School for the Arts, Katie has been an honor roll student and in 2009 was inducted into the Bigelow Society for her high academic standing.

Interesting fact: Katie loves exploring and has a bit of Lewis & Clark in her or maybe, more accurately, Sacajawea. But her exploring, she says, is in the form of train travel and visiting new cities and making new friends along the way. She also confines her “exploring” to local thrift shops where she searches through clothes bin for “new” treasures.
 

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