Meet Kendra Augustin

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Sed ut perspiciatis unde.

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kendra Augustin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kendra, thanks for joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I won’t share my age, but I do wish I moved to New York City right out of high school. I think moving for the first time away from my family, and away from my state, was a hard adjustment that took me years to overcome. So if I moved to the city at 18, I probably would have still have suffered as much, if not more, but four or five years of that suffering and I’d still be in my early 20s.

Kendra, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m more of a writer than an actor these days but I have a BA in theater. The desire to become an actor came from a combo of a things: hearing a fellow classmate (on our way to St. Augustine, Florida in fourth grade) saying she wanted to be an actor and singer. I remember thinking, “Me too!” Not sure if I went this down this

path because I’m a follower and stubborn or because my fellow classmate saying that made something I didn’t even consider seem like a possibility. The world may never know. But as an introverted, quiet, lonely, latchkey kid TV became my source of community and I wanted to be a part of that world.

I’ve always written. I wrote poetry, and I wanted to be a songwriter, and maybe a novelist, but I studied theatre in college because that seemed to make more sense than music at that time. Specifically because I’m not musical.

I didn’t do that well as an actor in school, but I did write three short plays I didn’t share until I moved to New York City. I only shared one but people laughed!

I did decently in improv class in college, during the early weeks anyway, so laughter was the clearest form of approval.

In NYC, I thrived more as a writer than as an actor so that’s the direction I went.

I did sketch comedy for four years, and I’ve had quite a few short play productions, some have even published, Living Creatures and Sisterhood in the Time of the Apocalypse.

I even co-created a short play theatre festival with my pal one time (Leela NYC)

These days I’m getting into writing full-length plays and short films.

I’ve written a few tv pilot scripts.

This year I’m aiming to write three feature length screenplays and a novel.

Some words people have used to describe my work — And I quote: “funny/dark/strange”, “funny/dark/weird”

“wonderfully weird”

“funny and disturbing”

“delightful and horrifying”

“dark and whimsical”,

“dark and absurdist”,

“macabre”

“sweet.”

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

-Define what the word “emerging” means. Sometimes I’ll see an opportunity for emerging artists and the people who end up being chosen invented fire.

Companies should be honest in what they’re looking for. Instead of saying “Even if you just have an idea of something,” they should say “If you invented fire you can come in with just an idea. If you did not invent fire then the foundation of whatever you submit must be as groundbreaking as inventing fire. That or be somebody we know.”

-To stop charging submission fees.

-To stop making us do incredible amounts of free labor just to maybe get an interview.

-To stop trying to give AI our jobs and instead use AI to heal the world in a useful, considerate, non violent way.

-The wealthy need to go back to sponsoring up and coming creative artists. Fund our wackadoo, eccentric, diverse work. Pay our rents. Fund our all expenses paid trips to Europe to create and hang.

-Stop cancelling projects that have POC or queer leads and teams.

-Artist should be paid more than CEOS and execs.

-It should be illegal to shelves shows for tax write-offs. It should be illegal to have staff writers write an entire TV series and then never air that TV series. It should be illegal to cancel TV shows just so you don’t have to pay artists a raise! It should be illegal to swindle artists.

-It shouldn’t cost 20k to put up a theatre show for a four day run in New York City.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I want to write and produce my TV shows.

I want to write and direct and produce my films.

Hope to eventually collaborate with directors who respect the writer later on in my career.

I want to occasionally act with the coolest filmmakers. And perform in some classic plays.

I want to write plays that other people produce.

I want to make a great amount of money as an artist and not be thwarted by predators, racists, and dehumanizers.

And after all that, I want to produce the works of women, friends, and bipoc . Or at the very least, recommend them to people who say, “we can’t find “insert marginalized group here.” I’ll find them.

Contact Info:

Website: https://www.kendraaugustin.com/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-fOm_Kb-_arN8Z9aC_AMQ

Image Credits
Jenni Walkowiack (the personal photo). RD Photo video (NYLFF photo) Caro Rosario (knife photo and the other one with the same shirt) Alexandria Iona Yani Perez (flowers) Jenni Walkowiack (Kendra A headshot 2)

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Meet Kendra Augustin

Meet Kendra Augustin

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Hi Kendra, thanks for joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

Kendra, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

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