This week’s featured artist is the definition of “involved.” In fact, senior Katie Hawkinson has performed and stage-managed over a trillion plays since her freshman year here at Lawrence. And though the number of shows is actually more like 14, this number still represents an impressive amount of work and encapsulates Hawkinson’s intense passion for all things theatrical.
A latecomer in terms of her musical career, Hawkinson did not discover her love for singing until her junior year of high school.
“For my entire life up to that point I had wanted to pursue art,” she said. “Then in fall of junior year, I got cast as the Mother Abbess in ‘The Sound of Music’ and got hooked. It was a pretty quick switch.”
I am going to go out on a limb and say that, though Hawkinson’s preferred genre may be musical theatre, she also has a demonstrated fondness for what might be considered atypical vocal-major fare.
Hawkinson’s senior recital featured a variety of pieces not often seen in Lawrence vocal department recitals. In fact, she was allegedly the first one to ever perform excerpts of Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire,” an atonal piece about a sad clown, here at LU.
Said the performer, “Professor McQuinn is the main reason that I picked ‘Pierrot Lunaire’ for my recital. She played one of the movements in music history [class] one morning and I flipped out!”
If you’re looking to catch Hawkinson in an upcoming performance, look no further than Charlie King’s LUMP production of “When the War is Done.” Hawkinson is the female lead in this translation of a French musical that looks at France during the Nazi occupation. The show will be in Cloak Theatre Friday and Saturday, April 24 and 25.
Artist Spotlight
