# Kate Valk > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Kate_Valk > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Kate_Valk.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Valk > Source revision: 1351906205 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|American actor and performance artist}} {{Infobox person |name = Kate Valk |birth_date = {{birth date and age|1957|03|06}} |birth_place = [Spokane, Washington](/source/Spokane%2C_Washington), U.S. |occupation = {{hlist|Actress|performance artist}} |known_for = Founding member of [The Wooster Group](/source/The_Wooster_Group) |years_active = 1979–present |alma_mater = [Tisch School of the Arts](/source/Tisch_School_of_the_Arts), [New York University](/source/New_York_University) }} '''Kate Valk''' (born March 6, 1957) is a founding member of [The Wooster Group](/source/The_Wooster_Group), a collective of artists who make new work for the theater. Kate Valk began her work with the group in 1979 while she was a student at [New York University](/source/New_York_University)'s [Tisch School of the Arts](/source/Tisch_School_of_the_Arts).{{citation needed|date=March 2013}} In 2003 she was awarded a [Foundation for Contemporary Arts](/source/Foundation_for_Contemporary_Arts) Grants to Artists Award,{{citation needed|date=March 2013}} and in 2006, the ''[New York Times](/source/New_York_Times)'' published an article featuring Valk.[https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/theater/newsandfeatures/12calh.html New York Times] ==Early life== Kate Valk was born on March 7, 1956, in [Spokane, Washington](/source/Spokane%2C_Washington). Her mother was a nurse, while her father was a jack-of-all-trades; he worked, at various times, at a cement company, a post office, a remodeling company, and on real estate ventures. They moved consistently during her childhood, including to [Wisconsin](/source/Wisconsin), [Pennsylvania](/source/Pennsylvania), and [Maryland](/source/Maryland). This lower-middle-class childhood did not give her much exposure to the arts. At age 16, she worked part-time at Shepherd Pratt, a nursing home. She attended [Towson State](/source/Towson_State) in [Baltimore, Maryland](/source/Baltimore%2C_Maryland), for two years before moving to [New York City](/source/New_York_City) at the age of 19 to pursue a career in theatre. She attended NYU in the studio program and worked with [Stella Adler](/source/Stella_Adler) for two years. During her last semester, she worked with the Experimental Theatre Wing while the [Wooster Group](/source/Wooster_Group) was teaching for the semester and really enjoyed her experience with them. During her time in NYC, she worked for Ding-a-Ling Taxi. ==Theatre career== After she finished college, she turned back to theatre and went to the Wooster Group in search of a job. She had worked as a seamstress during her time in the theatre, so starting in 1979, [Elizabeth LeCompte](/source/Elizabeth_LeCompte) hired her to work as a seamstress and for general help with production, including making props and transcribing. Her first role with the Wooster Group as an actress was in ''Route 1 & 9'', an adaption of [Thornton Wilder](/source/Thornton_Wilder)’s [Our Town](/source/Our_Town) staged in 1981. She has appeared in every Wooster Group show since. She has also worked in film, appearing most notably in ''[The Manchurian Candidate](/source/The_Manchurian_Candidate_(2004_film))'' as Agent Volk. In recent years, she has founded two different arts education programs. One of them is an in-school theatre curriculum at Dr. Sun Yat Sen Middle School in Chinatown, founded in 1992. The other arts education program is a free, three-week summer program for high school students, called the Wooster Group’s Summer Institute, founded in 1997. ==Stage credits== Her stage credits include: [The Hairy Ape](/source/The_Hairy_Ape) as Mildred Douglas, 1997 [Hamlet](/source/Hamlet) as Gertrude/Ophelia, 2007, at St. Ann’s Warehouse ''The Emperor Jones'' as Brutus Jones, 2009, at Owen Bruner Goodman Theatre ''North Atlantic'' as performer, 2010, at The Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater ''Vieux Carré'' as performer, 2010-2011, at The Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater ''Early Plays'' as performer, 2012, at [St. Ann’s Warehouse](/source/St._Ann%E2%80%99s_Warehouse) ''Cry, Trojans!'' as performer, 2014, at [The Performing Garage](/source/The_Performing_Garage) ''The Room'' as performer, 2015-2016, at The Performing Garage ==Film credits== Her film credits include: [The Golden Boat](/source/The_Golden_Boat) as Amelia Lopes (1990) [The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez](/source/The_Cabinet_of_Dr._Ramirez) as Sue (1991) ''Dead Flowers Alice'' (1992) ''[Fresh Kill](/source/Fresh_Kill)'' (1994) ''[The Manchurian Candidate](/source/The_Manchurian_Candidate_(2004_film))'' as Agent Volk (2004) ''Utopians'' as Dr. L ==References== {{Reflist}} ==Sources== * [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/19/shaking-it-up The New Yorker] * [http://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/recipients/kate-valk Foundation For Contemporary Arts] * [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0884780/ IMDb] * [http://bombmagazine.org/article/2920/kate-valk Bomb Magazine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160331222904/http://bombmagazine.org/article/2920/kate-valk |date=2016-03-31 }} * [http://www.broadwayworld.com/people/Kate-Valk/ Broadway World] * [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/theater/newsandfeatures/12calh.html?_r=0 New York Times] * [http://www.abouttheartists.com/artists/302895-kate-valk About the Artists] {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Valk, Kate}} Category:Living people Category:1956 births Category:New York University Tisch School of the Arts alumni --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Kate Valk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Valk) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Valk?action=history)). 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