Kaitlin Hopkins ’82
We caught up with Kaitlin Hopkins, head of the musical theatre program at Texas State University San Marcos, who is currently travelling between Texas and Chile where she is helping found the first musical theatre program in the country.
How long have you been teaching?
It’s sort of a weird answer, I’ve been coaching master classes on and off for 15 years. While I was working professionally it was something I loved to do.
The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival is a very famous college festival that travels around the country, breaking it down into 8 regions, and judging performances, and the regional winners then compete in the national finals in Washington…About 10 or 12 years ago they approached my husband and I, who is also a professional performer, and asked us to judge and teach master classes…It was something we started doing to give back and honestly we loved it, we just loved it. That was sort of the beginning of us realizing we were teachers.
What can you tell us about the musical theater program you’re designing in Santiago, Chile for the Pro Jazz Institute?
I’ve been working with this school called the Pro Jazz institute for the past year. They just recently received approval from the government to offer a degree in musical theater and they needed help, and asked if I would be interested in collaborating with them…They approached us because we had launched a musical theater program here in 2009 and it got very successful very quickly and they asked us to basically bring the program we have here over there.
It’s a four-year degree plan that’s not at a University, it’s part of this Pro Jazz Institute, which is the premiere training program in Chile for jazz musicians and has been for thirty years. Musical theater in general in Chile is just now starting to catch on…but there’s no training program.
How’re you going to split your time between Texas and Chile?
I’m only intending to go down once a year…Next year I’m going to go back with more of my faculty and some students and we’re going to spend a little bit longer there.
What is your favorite memory from participating in theater productions at Williston Northampton?
Oh gosh, I have so many and they all involve Ellis Baker, he was so instrumental in developing my love for theater and not just for performing. I really loved the times I got to stage manage and crawl around up in the rafter plugging lights in, those are the moments that I remember the most, the crew stuff…I was lucky because I picked a high school where theater was really celebrated and valued.
Besides theater, what’s the best thing you learned at Williston?
The best thing I learned…two things. I learned how to study and I learned how to do research. That was good because I wasn’t a good student but I felt like Williston taught me how to be a great student…If it hadn’t had been for a couple of my teachers there I don’t think I would have had the success in my life that I’ve had. They really taught me how to be a good student, no matter what profession you’re in.