BIO
Photo: Elif Levent
Kathy Hendrickson is a performer, director, and teacher who, in 2012 Assistant Directed the TONY award winning Broadway revival of Death of A Salesman, directed by Mike Nichols, staring the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. From 2002-2010 she acted as Dean and senior improvisation and acting faculty of the world renowned New Actors Workshop in New York City, a two-year professional conservatory founded by George Morrison, Nichols and Paul Sills. She recruited and trained hundreds of actors in her time at the workshop. In 2011, Ms. Hendrickson co-founded and began her tenure as Artistic Director of Jersey City Children’s Theater, bringing the teachings of Neva Boyd, Viola Spolin and Paul Sills to the youth of Jersey City, in the forms of both education/outreach and Story Theater Performance. With Hendrickson at the helm JCCT served more than 13,000 Jersey City youth.
In August of 2015 she accepted a professorship at North Hennepin Community College in Minneapolis, MN, and in 2020 became Interim Dean of Fine Arts, Languages and Communication at the college.
Ms. Hendrickson is an expert in the fields of actor training, both for youth and adults with nearly 25 years classroom experience and logging in over 15,000 teaching hours. At The New Actors Workshop, she has worked for many years alongside Mike Nichols as a fellow instructor of scene study, and has collaborated and designed curriculum with George Morrison for nearly 15 years. In addition to her work at New Actors Workshop and NHCC, she has been a guest artist/director at The College of St. Benedict, St. John’s University, Dartmouth College, Antioch University, Stella Adler School of Acting, New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, as well as the Metodi Festival in Tuscany Italy, KHIO (National Conservatory) in Oslo, Norway, Artcenicas in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, and SPOLIN-IST in Istanbul, Turkey.
She has coordinated master classes with Kevin Kline, Stanley Tucci, Edward Albee, Edie Falco, Andre Gregory, and Brian Bedford.
From 2000-2002 Ms. Hendrickson worked for Nichols’ production company, Icarus Productions, where she assisted him during W;t (starring Emma Thompson, Harold Pinter, Aileen Atkins) for HBO films, The Seagull (starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Philip Hoffman, Natalie Portman), for the New York Shakespeare Festival in Central Park, and Angels in America (starring Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Jeffrey Wright, Mary Louise Parker), also for HBO films.
As an actor she has appeared in over 100 stage productions, films, and commercials and continues to direct both regionally and in New York City. She is a graduate of The College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, MN, and holds a Masters Degree in playwriting.
Kathy Hendrickson is an actor, educator and director, specializing in the theater games of Viola Spolin. In her nearly 20 years of teaching and as Vice President and Senior Faculty of the New Actors Workshop in New York City, she has taught hundreds of classes and workshop both in the United States and around the globe.