actor. director. educator.
Libby Hawkins
About Me
Libby Hawkins was born in San Diego, CA but has lived and work in most of the southern half of the U.S. She received her BA in Theatre Arts from Texas A&M University in College Station, TX and spent three years performing and teaching in the D/FW metroplex before moving to Santa Maria, CA to attend the Pacific Conservatory Theatre's professional actor training program. Libby completed her training by graduating with her MFA in Theatre with a concentration in Acting from the University of South Carolina.
Great theatre should spur audiences to ask questions about the world around them. Libby's directing and acting work seeks to create a space in which the exploration and upending of social norms, power dynamics, and femininity sparks curiosity about the status quo. Meaningful approaches to text, devising, and movement are foundations of her directing practice, yielding productions that are evocative, passionate, and layered. Collaborative directing methods encourage theatre artists to share the story with each other on our journey through productions.
As an artist-educator, her educational focus is contemporary acting, movement for the actor, and theatre education. She believes that by practicing movement techniques from Tadashi Suzuki, Viewpoints, clowning, and ballet that actors of diverse practicalities can work with greater relaxation and freedom in rehearsal and performance.
Libby is the creator of the Dallas Movement Studio - a studio focused on providing continuing movement training for arts professionals in the DFW metroplex - and has received her teaching certification from the Texas State Board of Education in 2013. In addition to teaching theatre for grades 2-8 and directing/producing student productions, she has also taught workshops in stage combat, stage make-up, dance, movement, and acting and voice techniques as a teaching artist for Shakespeare Dallas, Theatre Arlington, the Warehouse Theatre in Greenville, SC and the Young Performers Project at PCPA, as well as other student programs. Libby currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Instruction in the department of Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Texas at Arlington and as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Theatre in the Mississippi University for Women's MFA - Theatre Education program.
When not in rehearsal or the classroom, Libby enjoys spending time with her partner and family, playing with her fur babies Bandit and Summer, hiking, reading, or cooking up something somewhat healthy but definitely spicy in the kitchen. She dreams of one day being able to bake as well as the contestants on The Great British Bake Off. Bread seems to be a hurdle she can't get past.