KIERSTA HOOVER

Designer & Educator

 

About

Kiersta Hoover is a theatre artist and educator living in the Austin, Texas area. She holds a BBA in Marketing from Texas State University and an AAS in Technical Theatre - Costume Technology and Makeup Artistry from Austin Community College. She is currently in her third year as the Technical Theatre Director at Leander High School in Leander, Texas. Her most notable recent productions include her performances as Cleante in The Miser and Alice Deering in The Red Lamp at Sam Bass Theatre Association, Asst. Scenic Designer for Everybody and Asst. Lighting Designer for Lonely Planet at ACC Drama, and Lighting Designer for The Red Velvet Cake War at Georgetown Palace Theater and A Miracle On 34th Street Classic Radiocast (2021) at Penfold Theatre Co.

Artistic Statement

I grew up in the theatre. I spent every summer at the theatre with my dad while he stage managed. I checked in props, painted anything and everything, hit ‘go’ on light cues, printed scripts… and most importantly, watched the magic of live theatre. 

I also grew up as a terribly shy kid, who admired the actors who could stand on stage and put their whole heart and soul into a character in front of so many people. It took many years to overcome that fear and to step into the lights myself, but when I entered high school, my transformation became complete, and I truly began to love theatre from all angles. My high school director called me a “hybrid-student”, a very special and limited sort of theatre student whom he could put anywhere in a production, in any role, and I would just be happy to be involved. I’d refer to myself today as a theatre generalist, but the motivation is the same, I always just want to be involved in as much of the process as possible. 

When I tell people I do theatre, I often get asked, “well, what do you do?,” and that’s always been a challenging question for me. It would be easier to answer “what don’t you do?” or “what did you do today?.” Some days I’m a performer. Others, I’m a director. Some days I’m a lighting designer, a carpenter, a stage manager, a stitcher, a scenic painter, a box office manager, an usher. It doesn’t matter what my role is in the process, I just want to be making theatre, because live theatre is an artform like no other. Live theatre brings communities together; it is cathartic, energetic, somewhat spontaneous, and ultimately, a lot of hard work and collaboration that creates a beautiful piece of art that invites the audience to transport themselves into the piece and be changed by what they see.

So what does being a theatre generalist translate to? Right now, it means being an educator by day, and an artist by night. It means cultivating young performers, designers, technicians, and maybe even a few young theatre generalists like myself. It means working toward opening the theatre doors to create more accessibility and diversity in the field. At the end of the day, it means waking up every day and immersing myself in theatre and renewing my passion over and over again by taking on new roles, challenges, and responsibilities, and to, in the words of Tim Gunn, “make it work.”