Welcome to Kate Mura.com
Actor, Model, Technician, and Activist
Welcome to my site! Here you can find information about my work in Theatre, Film, Modeling, Voice-Over and Teaching. Browse the above links to sample my work and download my resume - which ever one works for your needs! And please, feel free to contact me with any questions or for supplemental materials.
News
September 2011 Hello from San Francisco! Yep, San Francisco where I have headed down to audition, see some wonderful friends (including Annaliese Moyer - if you don't know her name, check out my modeling pages!) and enjoy the beginning of SF Fringe. I'll actually be catching JapJAP by Una Aya Osato an old colleague of mine from my CityKids Repertory years. I hope she remembers me!
As You Like It, had a wonderful run. While I was sad to see it end, I flowed into officiating the wedding of two dear friends and received a very special invitation to facilitate neutral mask work for No Man's Land. It is Artist's Repertory Theatre's second show this season, starring Allen Nause, Tim True, William Hurt and Alex Hurt, directed by John Dillon who is the reason one of my favorite teachers, Daniel Stein is in the US! Ahhh... the small world of theatre. It has been a fantastic process so far, opening October 4th and running through November 6th. Tickets and more information can be found on their website, www.artistsrep.org
Fun follow ups! Restless will be hitting a theatre near you this fall! It premieres in LA and NYC starting Sept 16th and then opens up to other markets. Their facebook page seems to be the most up to date information. James VS. Reality is continuing to rack up awards, most recently snagging Best Sci-Fi at Dragon Con. If you order your very own copy, know that it comes with a second DVD full of 4 hours backstage/making of footage.
J
uly 2011 Happy Summer! As Midsummer rounded this year, I was deep in rehearsals for As You Like It with the Portland Shakespeare Project Your chances to see me sing Amiens are from July 13 - August 7, on the Morrison Stage of Artist's Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison in Portland OR. Shows are Thurs - Sun at 7:30pm with a 2pm Sunday also. Continuing the classical kick-off I also facilitated a commedia dell'arte intensive for Masque Alfresco's summer company of The Miser. Rage, Joy, Fear and Sorrow were embodied by all.
Before getting to celebrate the legalization of gay marriage in NY, Fuse Theatre Ensemle geared up for Pride through staged readings of Things That Are Happening Right Now by Sara Fay Goldman, Dude Ranch by Rusty Tennant, Sonnetscape a work in progress by Fuse, Stop Kiss by Diana Son and finished up the Gay Pride Reading series with Love! Valour! Compassion! by Terrence McNally. I had the pleasure to be in two readings and given the great response by audience and participants, we'll be doing this again next year.
Other fun spring tidbits: the feature Restless I was an extra in, premiered at Cannes Film Festival. My backside is frequently seen in the trailer so hopefully it was enjoyed in France too! James VS. Reality won Best Comedy at the DIY Film Awards, and my solo mask show had a lovely showing in LA for a private salon. Hopefully, I'll be back there performing it soon! And therefore also able to enjoy being Fairy Goddess Mother to one of my best friend's son. So Mote It Be!
At this year's Drammy Awards, 14 shows I worked on were considered for awards, and one I did a lot of prop work on, Lieutenant of Innishmore at Artist's Repertory Theatre, garnished Rusty Tennant - my co-artistic director of Fuse - the award for Best Prop Design. As it was very much an ensemble building effort to create his vision, we are all THRILLED! While other shows I was damn proud of were not recognized, Charlotte Salomon: Life or Theatre and Trailing Colors, I had a wonderful time reconnecting with friends and colleagues.
March 2011 From Samhain to Ostara is a long time! Where did the Winter go? It fell off, just like my hair did in an AMAZING photo shoot with Annaliese Moyer. As soon as the shots are allowed to go public, I promise I'll share. Think, Elizabethan, knives, castle... Sounds just like me. :-)
* Happy Spring all! This winter has been full of festivals. After finishing work on the Portland Revels and the Nutcracker with Oregon Ballet Theatre, I jumped into creator mode. For Fertile Ground, Portland's premiere new works festival I offered up the beginning of my solo mask show, Suburban Tribe, and helped Fuse Theatre Ensemble create #smarter_than_phones all the while performing Franzisca in Charlotte Salomon: Life or Theatre with Jewish Theatre Collaborative. Thank you to everyone who attended Fertile Ground, saw the shows and bought passes from Fuse's link! You're helping us become a sustainable, salaried ensemble.
* Festival time kept going with the first ever Portland Mini Fringe Festival that Fuse produced, organized and hosted. Six weeks saw 12 performers from all over the US and Canada, master classes, contact improv jams and Fuse original offerings. Suburban Tribe got a wonderful, brief remount with new masks and movement pieces. Now, Suburban Tribe is ready to tour, so if you have a venue - school, university, home, festival, theatre - that's interested, contact me!
* I've also had some nice industrial work as a dentist, call back for Leverage Season 3 and a few other percolating possibilities. :-) I also got to bring in the Spring as co-highpriestess at Portland's Pagan Faire this year. It was a beautiful faire and lovely to be with a group, Sister Spirit, I had little previous experience with.
* Next up, I join the cast of Trailing Colors performing at Headwaters in May, and am in Portland Shakespeare Project's inaugural production, As You Like It as Amiens this summer. Come hear me sing! And head to Albuquerque to help my parents work on the strawbale house. It has begun!
November 2010
Happy New Year! For those of you who didn't know, I celebrate Samhain as my new year and it was a glorious one!
The first time in many many years I was not working on Halloween. And coming down off of a wonderful run of Sunset Boulevard at Portland Center Stage, having my prop design playfully playing currently at Coho Theatre in Heart Beatings by Mark LaPierre, getting ready for a photo shoot, movie premiere of JAMES VS. REALITY, finishing up workshops for an original puppet piece Witebox with Puppet Lab and the Portland Revels, I deserved a little time to reconnect with my spirituality, remember my ancestors and renew my commitment to community. And remember that community is larger than my theatre world - which is easy for me to forget because I love it so much! And work so much! For which I give LOTS of thanks.
Performance wise I am thrilled to be joining the cast of Charlotte Solomon
when it remounts at Disjecta Feb. 2011. I had such an amazing experience
working with Jewish Theatre Collaborative on Kindertransport, I can't wait
to work with them again. And look out Portland, Fertile Ground Festival
is coming! If you're in the Pacific NW or need an excuse to visit, this
is the time! 10 days of new works, readings, full lengths, workshops, all
over the city. Festival passes are only $50 and they get you into every
show once and there are *a lot* of shows. I personally am in 3. My solo
mask performance, Suburban Tribe will be showing at Theatre! Theater! Jan.
21, 22, 28, 29 at 8pm and Jan 23, 26 & 30 at 2pm. If you purchase your
festival pass from this link - http://www.fusepdx.com/tickets.html
Fuse gets the entire $50.00! So use this link and pass it on! The festival
is going to be amazing, so had on over to Portland!
August 2010
Seems like updates are happening on a quarterly basis, as the last
one was three months ago... And I just have to echo myself, what a wonderful
three months!
Currently, I am Head of Wardrobe, Hair and Make-up for Long Day's Journey
Into Night. Working on this collaboration between Artists Rep (of Portland
OR) and the Sydney Theatre Company (of Sydney Australia) has been anything
but long. It's a delightful experience, sharing love of sustainable agriculture
with Brendon West (head of automation), love of mask with William Hurt and
love of Feldenkrais with Robyn Nevin. Everyone, onstage and off in this
production make the 3.5 hours of Eugene O'Neill's masterpiece fly by, 8
shows a week. Somehow in the midst of this run, I've submitted a RACC Project
Grant for Suburban Tribe, shot a video with Charles Deemer, taught Commedia
Intensives through Fuse Theatre Ensemble and was invited into the Northwest
Children's Theatre and School classes of Matt Haynes to teach Mask Performance
and an Intro to Rasa!
Before nestling in to the Newmark Theatre, I said farewell to my childhood
home. My mom blissfully retired in June, they closed on the house in July
and I flew out to help pack up the last of their (and my! I had more in
the attic than I remembered from December!) items. They gave substantial
donations to charitable organizations, we cleaned up, packed a U-Haul and
wheelchair van and hit the road to Albuquerque NM. What a trip! The wheelchair
van did not like the heat nor speeds faster than 65 mph and told us so.
Twice. First we broke down just outside St. Louis. Thankfully, a dear friend,
Patrick Durian lives there and works for a hotel! We were comfortably housed
and ready to hunker down for a couple days, when a miracle happened.
We broke down on a Saturday late afternoon. AAA was called, but nothing
is open on Sunday, so no work could be done until Monday. However, our tow
truck driver called his boss, who went into the shop early in the morning
on Sunday before presiding over his family's reunion and fixed it! Warning
us that it was a quick fix, as there looked to be a lot of potential problems.
Which was sadly the case. We enjoyed a side trip to Laura Ingalls Wilder's
home - instigated by friend, colleague, RN and pinch driver Jack Wells -
made it into Oklahoma and the van decided to die again. This time a more
substantial death. Thank you AAA for the excellent service and the Oklahoma
traffic patrol. We hadn't been on the side of the road 5 minutes and there
was a patrolman behind us asking if we needed help and making sure we had
water! His politeness and speed were greatly appreciated and thankfully
unneeded. We had plenty of food, liquids and laughter. Some might see this
all as an ordeal, but not us! We were cracking jokes, especially about roasting
my dad, the whole time.
This time we tucked into a small town west of Tulsa and had some difficult
choices to make. Jack and I both had scheduled flights to catch and work
to get to. We also had a U-Haul that needed to be unpacked and returned
in Albuquerque. To buy a little time, we changed Jack's flight to my flight
buying us a day. After the conversations between the mechanic and my mom
we held off as long as we could but ultimately had to leave my parents in
OK. Thankfully, they were able to hit the road the next day, but I felt
really bad they had the last 9 hours on their own - my dad needs a lot of
care and Jack did a wonderful job with him.
Once in Albuquerque, we were warmly greeted by my aunt and uncle and AMAZING
thunderstorms! They were gorgeous. I can't wait to visit to enjoy them more!
After an excellent sleep, we unpacked the U-Haul, had lunch, saw the land
where we'll be building strawbale soon and caught the plane home. Before
we boarded we got word that my parents were able to hit the road. They made
it safely.
If you can believe it, before all this I did hair and make-up on the Broadway
tour of Lion King and had a wonderful run performing in Paradise
Park with Fuse Theatre Ensemble, directed by Jocelyn Sawyer out of
NYC.
I'm getting tired just typing it all! But I'm rarely tired living it.
Oh! And I starred in a film created by Adrian Williams that will be coming
out late fall and shown in Frankfurt Germany. We had a creatively intense
time shooting at her childhood home - sensing a theme here? - and I can't
wait to see how it all comes together.
M
ay 2010
These three months have been jam packed of wonderful, diverse work and experience!
Kindertransport had a magnificent run at Artists Repertory's Alder Street Theatre. It has been a long time since a show I've been in has been of such quality. The whole team, design, production, artistic was a dream to collaborate with and our finished product spoke for itself. I was most touched when Holocaust survivors came up to us saying, "we got it right." Words cannot express the depth of my gratitude - I am not Jewish. I did not loose anyone to Auschwitz or Dachau or Treblinka. I am part German, but have never visited, so the breadth of research I did for Helga was intense. And paid off. Audience asked me if I was in the show and then were surprised at how young I am! Many commented on how perfect my accent was - thank you Mary Mac and Nancy Teichman! I hope the stories in the play and from all the talkbacks resonate for a long long time.
Then into a different vein, my mask making and mask training residency with Patton Middle School was wonderful. Many of my students were even able to see Kindertransport. Our production of The Prince and the Pauper came together in an all too short run. A huge amount of thanks must be given to Emily Ward, who wrote the grant bringing me into her classes and her skill as a teacher. At every turn, I was impressed and surprised by her student's willingness to play, ability to take notes and to retain what they were learning. Going into this, I didn't know how it would work with middle school and with plaster bandage performance masks - lesson learned, line the insides with some sweat absorbing material! I know Prince and the Pauper would not have been successful if Ms. Ward hadn't trained such wonderful students.
Currently, I'm in the midst of acro-tacular rehearsals for Paradise Park. I finally get to perform with my theatre company! We run at Theatre! Theater! 3430 SE Belmont, Portland OR from May 13 - June 12. Sara Fay Goldman and I have been using many of our afternoon hours in partner acrobatics training, climbing over each other like monkeys! Check out Fuse Theatre Ensemble's website to purchase tickets, learn about the show or give a tax deductible donation.
And somewhere in there I found time to travel to NJ to help my parents get their house ready to sell and do wigs for the international tour of Dreamgirls. I'm glad I did because I was surprisingly reunited with a fellow De Paul alum, Ronald Duncan.
January 2010
The numerical new year has started out with a bang! Travels took
Kate east, auditioning in NYC, being called back for the Broadway production
of HAiR, performing The Peasant’s Bible at a delightful salon and
enjoying the incredibly successful Under the Radar Festival. Highlights
of her experience included the SITI Company/Martha Grahm collaboration,
American Document and Pig Iron’s Workshop: Ordinary/Extraordinary,
Entrances and Exits - the wonderful problem of doing nothing in front of
an audienceWorkshop: Ordinary/Extraordinary, Entrances and Exits - the wonderful
problem of doing nothing in front of an audience. It was great rekindling
connections made in Poland this summer at The World As A Place of Truth
Festival.
Somehow she also made time to meet up with old friends, new friends and help her family get ready to move and build their dream retirement straw bale home in Albuquerque NM.
Back in Portland she jumped into two incredibly fun shorts in Pulp Diction for the Fertile Ground Festival playing a vampire lesbian in Alba the Vampire, and a ditzy bank robber in Hamlet in Hiding. The sold out audience had a blast!
Shifting to a suburban focus, she’s begun working with Patton Middle School, teaching mask making and mask performance. The cumulation of their collaboration will be shown to the pubic in The Prince and the Pauper, April 23, 24 and 25.
Next up performance wise, is with the Jewish Theatre Collaborative, playing Helga in Kindertransport, at Artist’s Rep 1515 SW Morrison, Feb. 25 – March 21, 2010. Then she’s back performing with her ensemble in Paradise Park at Theatre! Theater! 3430 SE Belmont, May 13 – June 12, 2010.
Also look for Fuse’s upcoming Slap That Bitch a hip hop retelling of Taming of the Shrew, Theatre! Theater! Feb. 18 – March 20, 2010. This tale of power dynamics is bold; who knows who will end up on top!
December 2009
What a wonderful couple months! While performing in The Laramie
Project, Hate Crimes Legislation finally passed in Congress and was
signed into law by President Obama. It was wonderful to announce this every
evening at the curtain speech and have the packed house erupt into applause.
For ten years The Laramie Project has been bringing a balanced
story of Matthew Shepherd and Laramie WY across the world, bringing light
to people's stories and thoughts surrounding homosexuality.
Now she's on to a different politically charged project, Kindertransport
with the Jewish Theatre Collaborative. This month rehearsals begin, crafting
the story of survival, family and healing. Look for us the end of January.
Then check out Slap That Bitch: a hip hop retelling of Taming of the Shrew.
Fuse is currently working on it and rehearsals have been great! As a company
member she's attended Viewpoints sessions and can attest that chemistry
is flying in all the right ways.
Tech wise Singing Christmas Tree, Ragtime, Kiss and Trans Siberian Orchestra
concerts have kept her busy, as well as maintaining wigs for Artist's Rep's
Holidazed.
Then there's creating chocolate molds for the soon to open Pastry Girl on
SE Stark!
So much fun, so little time. And somewhere in there she had a birthday!
Any guesses to her age?
Happy Yule or whatever glorious holiday (or none) that you celebrate!
October 2009
After a wonderful tour with Tears of Joy last season and an amazing European tour this summer - in one short month she visited France, Belgium and Poland, connecting with an in training cultural ambassador from Croatia, performing in an intimate salon in Leuven Belgium and participating in The World as a Place of Truth Festival at the Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw Poland. She is now happily back home in Portland.
See her onstage in: THE LARAMIE PROJECT through New Century Players Performances Oct. 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 29, and 31 at 7:30pm, Oct. 18, 25 and 31 at 2pm. She will also be participating in the One Night Only event of THE LARAMIE PROJECT: 10 YEARS LATER, EPILOGUE on Oct. 12 at 7:30pm, Newmark Theatre, PCPA, Portland OR.
Somehow in the past year - while touring! - she helped co-found Fuse Theatre Ensemble. After a fabulous showing at Bumbershoot with our original work, Craft/Craeft/Kraft, we're now creating, Slap That Bitch, a modern hip-hop retelling of Taming of the Shrew. Hip-hop and Shakespeare??? Absolutely! Look for this at Theatre! Theater! early 2010.
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