Our Director

Kathy Larson got the bug for theater again after a long hiatus when she got roped into directing a short play at church. She hadn't been involved in theater since high school, and even then, only as an actor. Everyone who participated in that play had so much fun and was really interested in doing more theatre at our church. But we couldn't find any plays we liked, so she thought, "why not just write one?" And so it began. She has written/directed over twenty full-length plays over the last fourteen years and has been blessed to be part of God bringing Searchlight Theatre from a ministry within the church to more of a community theater company sponsored by the church.

Kathy has a B.A. in Youth Ministry with minors in Biblical Studies and Business and an M.A. in Old Testament - not completely unrelated to theater: the play she wrote the semester she was finishing her thesis on Leviticus was a romantic comedy based on the four offerings of the ancient Israelite sacrificial system. As far as theater education, most of Kathy's has been of the on-the-job, learn-as-you-go kind. However, she has taken a directing class with Christians in Theatre Arts and during her Sabbatical in 2006, studied writing in Hollywood in the month-long screenwriting "bootcamp" Act One: Writing for Hollywood.

Kathy's vision is to produce authentic stories about authentic people who are struggling with faith, life, love, hope, truth - the things that matter. She wants Searchlight to be a place where people from all walks of life wrestle with these big questions together through a great story.