We were lucky to catch up with Kendall Walker recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kendall, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

My parents have both always worked in teaching, from elementary and middle school to higher education. My dad was also always a creative and musical person. They both fostered my creative interests whether it was dance, theater, music, LGBTQIA+ expression, and anything in between. My dad raised me on the mantra of, “respect your art.” He would say it to me every time I was dropped off to a rehearsal, acting lesson, dance class, etc. “Respect your art” means that if you love to do something, if you want to make a career of it, you owe it to yourself and to the craft to respect it by dedicating time, energy, and passion to it. This motto has followed me into all of my academic and career endeavors whether it be getting my Bachelor’s & Master’s degrees in the arts fields, teaching theater in higher education, directing/acting professionally, or being one of the few female queer Dramaturgs in the area. It has pushed me to fundraise and be an advocate as the Community Engagement Manager at Richmond Triangle Players, the premiere LGBTQIA+ theater in the mid-Atlantic region, and it is what instilled my work ethic in all areas of the arts. My parents are my heroes because they have always been the prime example of hard work. They have championed me in every aspect of my creative pursuits and career goals, and they are a huge reason that I am a self-sustaining artist, professor, and theater professional.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was always immersed in the arts as a child, beginning in ballet and eventually training in theater forms such as shadow and other forms of puppetry, Shakespeare, and musical theater. I knew that no matter what career path I took, performing arts would be at the core of it. I graduated from college in 2020, and all of my career options dissipated. After reevaluating I decided to get my Master of Fine Arts degree in theater performance and pedagogy, leading me to now be an instructor in the theater department at Virginia Commonwealth University, with the eventual goal of being a full-time professor. I’ve taught everything from acting, to movement, to Shakespeare, to dramaturgy, to theater history, to queer theater, and more. Once I finished graduate school and started working as a professional actor, director, and dramaturg, I found Richmond Triangle Players, the premiere LGBTQIA+ theater in the Mid-Atlantic region. The inclusive and diverse mission of RTP was a natural fit to my experiences and my skill set of teaching, fundraising, and public speaking all came into play as I became the Community Engagement Manager. As CEM I facilitate talkbacks, engage with community partners and sponsors, coordinate our hundreds of volunteers, and run our Creative Conversations–an event series for our donors that relates themes of our shows to real-world issues and gives a behind-the-scenes look at how we create our art onstage.
I am most proud of being such a multi-faceted artist and theater professional. I am not just a professor, actor, dramaturg, etc., and every single one of my jobs is related to one another somehow. I am proud to say that I do many so different things on any given day and each of those things fulfills me as an artist, an academic, and an activist.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn was that age is a barrier. At 23 I earned my Master of Fine Arts degree, and at 24 I became a college instructor, dramaturg, and director, often working with students, actors, and designers that were older than me. I had to unlearn the idea that I was too young to be taken seriously as a professional and as a leader. As a young queer woman, I have often been underestimated due to my age, my femininity, and my enthusiasm. I ask a lot of questions, I bring unbridled optimism into every room, I express myself through my personal sense of style and fashion, and it was when I was in graduate school that I realized those qualities are strengths, not weaknesses. I still have to remind myself, when I walk into a room of people twice my age who have years more experience, that I have earned my place at the table and I deserve to be respected at the same level.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is knowing that someone has been changed by the art you’ve contributed to. Being a part of something that makes people think, makes people leave looking a little differently at the world, or teaching them something new, is a privilege. When my students tell me they not only enjoyed a course or learned new things, but that it empowered them to be more confident and assured in their sense of self, an immense wave of gratitude washes over me because I think of those who did that for me when I was younger. There is an intangible, ephemeral quality about live theater that is unlike any other field–there is a feeling hanging in the air between audience and performer. It is a shared experience that is unique to that performance in that moment. Theater in any form whether it be academic or professional, in its simplest definition, is: “living truthfully under imaginary circumstances;” embodying a human experience and sharing it. It is as playful and exciting as it is meaningful and important.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rtriangle.org
• Instagram: Kendallwalks
• Facebook: Richmond Triangle Players

Image Credits

Destiny Martinez (2)