Associate Professor of Theater Katherine LeRoy- Lawson is preparing to present the fall production at South Georgia State College. The six actor ensemble show, ‘Blood at the Root’ by Dominique Morisseau, is based on the ‘Jena Six’, six black teens convicted of beating a white student in Jena, La., after three nooses were hung from a tree on their high school’s property.
The choice of this script is an example of LeRoy-Lawson’s commitment to excellence and expanding her students’ horizons both on and off the stage.
“I try to push the envelope,” said LeRoy-Lawson.
“The language is not always clean; there could be some cursing. I believe in, ‘Let’s keep it real’ and dealing with topics which need to be talked about. That’s the only way change is going to happen.”
LeRoy-Lawson did not start out to be a Professor of Theater, but a professional working actor.
Originally from Pensacola, Fla., LeRoy-Lawson received her undergraduate degree from Florida A&M University.
Following graduation, she attended the University Residential Theater Association Master of Fine Arts central recruiting auditions in Chicago.
She accepted an offer from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, where she earned her MFA.
“I went to hone my acting skills,” said LeRoy-Lawson. “At orientation, they told us we would be teaching our own basic acting class each semester. I was scared. That’s not what I thought I was signing up for,”she continued. “They basically threw us into the fire.”
“I had the worst evaluations my first semester. I did not like that,” Leroy- Lawson states emphatically. “By the next semester, I had the top evaluations.”
After graduate school, LeRoy-Lawson worked as an actor in both Chicago and New York.
“I discovered I don’t like big cities,” said LeRoy-Lawson. “New York was for the birds.”
While on a visit home to Pensacola, she met a young retired Marine from Moultrie who was working in the Air Force Reserve. They married in 2017.
She began applying for college and university teaching positions closer to home and was quickly caught in the ‘You don’t have enough experience- How do I get experience?’ cycle.
“The love I discovered for teaching in grad school, I wanted to be able to do that and act professionally,” LeRoy-Lawson said.
“I applied to SGCA and Dr. Porter, the dean at the time, took a chance and hired me. All I needed was an opportunity,” says LeRoy-Lawson. She was hired part-time in 2015 and became temporary full-time in 2018.
Since joining SGSC, Leroy-Lawson has worked tirelessly to put the school on the collegiate theater map.
In 2020, SGSC’s production of ‘Wit’ was invited to perform at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, considered one of the largest college theater platforms in the country. The production was a resounding success and led to national recognition.
She has developed a rigorous, well rounded acting program rivaling those of larger four year institutions.
Each fall LeRoy-Lawson directs and produces a script which she thoughtfully selects based on the skill set of the student auditionees.
In early spring, the students attend the KCACTF, Region IV and they travel to see a professional theater company production. The semester culminates in a presentation of a staged reading which is a rehearsed read-through of a script performed in front of an audience. The actors do not memorize their lines, and there are no props, sets or costumes.
Leroy-Lawson also instituted the popular ‘Talk Backs’ between cast and audience members following select performances.
“This gives students another opportunity to learn to express themselves in front of people.”
Leroy-Lawson has worked diligently to achieve her professional goals. She is a working actor in television, film, and theater and directs professionally throughout the southeast.
Her first love, though, remains her students.
“I know my students’ names, I know their goals, I know their hopes, I know their dreams. I mentor them, I toughen them, but in a loving way,” says LeRoy-Lawson. “I’m going to push them and I’m not going to sugar coat it. It’s old school, but my students love me and appreciate it.
“Students can go to larger institutions, but they will not get what I have to offer.”
