“The body is the garden of the soul.”
Angels In America 

In academia, as in life, paths often intersect in the most serendipitous ways. For Katherine Wilkinson, a connection did not just create a friendship, but it also opened a door at Texas Tech, where she is spending the 25-26 academic year as a visiting assistant professor in the School of Theatre & Dance teaching courses in directing and performance.

After beginning her career at a Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre in Brisbane, Australia, she founded her own company, Gale Theatre, in Austin, Texas, before moving to The Big Apple. Not only has Katherine worked with Anne Bogart, Sam Gold, Whitney White, JoAnne Akalaitis, Oliver Butler, and Andy Blankenbuehler as an assistant director, she has also directed and taught at universities nationwide, including Harvard, Bates College, Juilliard, Bard College, UNC-Chapel Hill, Rutgers University, Arcadia University, Duke, SUNY Purchase, NYU, The University of Queensland (Australia), and St. Edward’s. 

Artistically, she creates physically adventurous, energetic, ensemble-driven work through a queer lens. Obsessed with poetry, endurance, transformation, and the relationship between intimacy and spectacle, she often works on the very old and the very new, fascinated by the pressing questions of now-ness in both. Her work was most recently seen in August at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where she directed ODDS ARE by Smita Hope Ruseell at The Assembly, one of the big three venues at the festival. 

For the past two summers, Wilkinson co-directed the Marfa Intensive with faculty member and longtime friend, Dr. Christopher Staley. The Marfa Intensive is an immersive learning experience that asks students to explore the elements of devised theatre using laboratory, experiential practices. 

“She and I met at the SITI Company Skidmore Intensive in 2009, where we trained in Viewpoints, Suzuki, and Composition,” says Staley. He continues,

Bringing Katherine to Marfa was a chance to remind myself of the types of formative training and performance experiences that she and I have shared over the last two decades. I believe the joy that she and I maintain when working together is something that carries over to our students and to our current work on a devised piece in the upcoming Rites of Spring production. I could not be more grateful or inspired to work alongside her.

Director of Theatre & Dance, Mark Charney, admits, “We are fortunate to have such world class talent here at Tech. After witnessing her uncanny ability to share critical perspectives of compositions created  in Marfa, I am thrilled that we attracted an artist who is currently working professionally to share her immense skillset with our student body.” 

What excites Katherine most about Texas Tech is working with the school's graduate students: “I live in NYC and the industry there can feel very insular. Students at Tech are investigating a wider perspective of where theatre can be and what it can do for communities - that delights me.”

Katherine Wilkinson is a director, theatre-maker, and faculty member of the Columbia University School of the Arts in Manhattan. She has developed work with The New Ohio (Ice Factory), HERE arts, La Jolla Playhouse (WOW Fest), New Georges, Theater Mu, Ars Nova, Bedlam, WP, MCC, Clubbed Thumb, Classical Theatre of Harlem, The Mercury Story, The Brick, Signature Theatre, Columbia Stages, ZAZ10TS Gallery, The Tank, Fusebox Festival, Corkscrew Festival, The Watermill Center, The VORTEX, Miami New Drama, The Oklahoma Contemporary, NOLA Fringe, Houston Fringe, among others. She is also a 2023 New Georges Audrey Resident, a 2022-2023 Orchard Project Greenhouse Lab member, and a recent Opera America Tobin Director-Designer Prize winner.