“Katharyn R King”
Actress, Voiceover Artist and a Lady of Many, Many Talents!
By Patrick Donovan – Author/Screenwriter
US Navy Disabled Veteran – 1980 – 1991
Seattle, WA (The Hollywood Times) 06/17/2020
“What Would Janeway Do? Ask Katharyn King. She has started from tough beginnings to rise to a writer, singer, producer, and working on podcasts such as Above Normal Podcast and The 7th Rule Podcast to Thraeyce, her music, Kat King is a unique and wonderful Lady who has the drive and passion to take on anything!”
– Patrick Donovan
About Kat King:
Born on 10 March 1990, Katharyn R. King is an actress, singer, writer and director. From an early age, she enjoyed acting and singing and soon earned such familiar roles as Dolly Levi from Hello, Dolly! Miss Hannigan from Annie, and Adelaide from Guys and Dolls. Miss King acted in more than seven main stage plays, competed in several theatre competitions, stage-managed six school productions and most recently, one professional ballet with Center Stage Dance Studios based out of Corona. She is most widely recognized for her performances as Miss Meyermyer from Lindsay Price’s Christmas parody, Deck the Stage, Martha Dobie from the controversial Hellman tragedy The Children’s Hour, Hecuba from Euripides’ The Trojan Women, Ruth from Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, and Lettice Douffet from Peter Shaffer’s Lettice and Lovage.
Preferring character roles to straight ones, high comedy to low, it is no wonder that she has a flair for both classical and contemporary English plays. The summer before her terminating year in secondary school, she enlisted in the United States Army Reserve for personal reasons. Unable to depart for Basic Combat Training until she graduated from school, King continued her studies in Advanced Theatre Arts under the auspicious of Theatre Director Meridith Stempinski.
A graduate of Centennial High School in Corona, California, King left her alma mater sporting High Honours for Academic Excellence as well as Honours from the International Thespian Society for Outstanding Excellence in Theatre Arts, and has accrued over 2400 hours of acting and technical experience and training in this field within the span of three years. Katharyn also served as Secretary/Treasurer of ITS Troupe #5004 her senior year. She received the 2007 and 2008 Most Promising (Junior and Senior years respectively) Award from the Centennial High School Theatre Department, the Presidential Education Award for Outstanding Academic Excellence in Theatre of 2008, and the 2008 Bank of America Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Drama. She has also penned a play of her own, which is entitled The Broken Spirit, Blind.
An avid writer, she is also known for her prolific authorship of over thirty short stories to date and her collection continues to grow. Some of her more famous stories are “Elise,” “Lessons Learned While Falling Off the Earth,” “Painted Blind,” “Erasure Complex,” and “Apart.” Along with short fiction, King’s poetry has attracted much acclaim as well, earning her the 2008 New Jersey Live Poets Society Topical Award for her poem “Penury’s Song” and the International Society of Poets Editor’s Choice Award for both “Penury’s Song” and “Vitals.”
Although accepted to Richmond University in London out of high school, financial hardship compelled King to enroll at the California State University in San Bernardino, California where she spent her first college term majoring in Theatre Arts with an Emphasis in Theatre Education and a minor in French. She became an active member of Players of the Pear Garden, San Bernardino’s Drama Club, and was the only freshman to be cast in Dr. Terry Donovan Smith’s production of Moliere’s The Miser in November 2008.
Again, a longing to return to a life of civil service incited King to return to her duties in the military, this time on Active Duty. She served in the Army’s Military Intelligence Corps as a Cryptologic Linguist and has just returned to California from Australia to pursue a career in Theatre. She most recently appeared in a production of Pride and Prejudice, directed by Chuck Ketter.
The Review:
I met Katharyn through a mutual friend and I was immediately impressed with her character, passion, dedication and drive. Kat is a multi-talented lady and a US Army veteran. I loved this interview with her and enjoyed listening to her tell her story. Kat is such an intelligent person with many gifts.
She told me about her early family and how there was pain but how she really held on to her sister as a source of peace and serenity. She explained about her time in the Army as a Cryptologic Technician or IP Tech and all the intricacies of being in the military including a few regrets about our military.
Her best time in life was how she grew up with her father watching Star Trek Voyager and how she connected with him. But most of all, it was Captain Janeway (played by Kate Mulgrew) that shaped who Katharyn would become. Her music is a extension of her soul and her artistry in rhythm is only a small part of Katharyn’s character.
She’s a poet, lyricist, writer, among her many talents. I loved her new single: Nothing on This Earth. It’s surreal, peaceful and gives you a sense of calm. So, sit back, listen to my interview with Katharyn and see why I believe this lady is someone to watch as she grows in life, passion and her love. Speaking of, she’s gay, proud and is engaged to her fiancé Rachael.
Enjoy the next 40 minutes with Katharyn King!
Patrick Donovan: Thank you for joining me today, Katharyn. I’m Patrick Donovan with the Hollywood times. How are you doing?
Katharyn King: I’m good. I’m good. How are you?
Patrick Donovan: Doing very well. Thank you. So, let’s get right into this. Tell me about your early beginnings, like where you grew up schools you went to, if you were in the military, your experiences there and what got you interested in acting and producing the music?
Katharyn King: Okay, well, it’s a lot of questions. So, I’m going to go and just start from the early beginnings.
I’m 30. So, I was born in 1990. My parents home schooled me. we were raised in a very Christian home. my mother was a stay at home parent, so she was a homemaker and my father, the breadwinner.
He was a coach operator, bus driver for the County of orange and Southern California, but he was originally from Chicago and, he ended up in California after he was abandoned by his dad and orphaned. So my family got kind of started off, very rough beginnings. Both of my parents, my mother lost her dad when she was a teenager and her grandmother nine months later.
So both of my parents grew up without that real strong foundation of family, but when I was younger, we had a very strong. sense of family foundation, when my parents were married and then they split up and when that happens, our world was just shaken. My world was taken. I think people, underestimate the trauma that it takes place during divorce, whether it’s amicable or whether it’s ugly.
And my parents’ divorce was especially ugly. So, for me, it was, it was very traumatic watching my family just, it was almost like someone had just taken the carpet and just pulled it out from under my feet. After that, I was about eight or nine when my parents split up. my father was in Chicago, my mother’s English, so I have a mixed ancestry and heritage.
My dad’s, father was Dutch. He came to the Chicago from the Netherlands and then just partied it up and, you know, went and had a bunch of kids and that was it. So, my dad and I were close and the one thing that brought us together was Star Trek. And I used to watch Star Trek Voyager every Wednesday night, with my dad.
So for me, that was sort of like my morality, all my ethics and values are derived from that universe and I wanted, I was very heavily inspired by Captain Janeway to become an actress. So that’s kind of how I got interested in acting, but I remember acting in my very first play, it was really just a skit for my church group when I was really little.
I remember they cast me as Mary and the nativity scene, right? And I remember complaining that, “Why do I have to be Mary? Mary doesn’t even get to say anything!” And that was it, you know, I was destined to be an actress at the very least. So yeah, I was homeschooled and then, they thrust us into the world of American public school and I, it was a culture shock, unlike anything else, because I was raised in a belief system that made it very difficult for me to relate to and connect with non-Christian non God fearing people.
My mother also ended up with someone following the divorce. It wasn’t a healthy relationship. It can be toxic, abusive. And she ended up having another, another baby. So I have a younger sibling to look forward to, but it was a very difficult, 15 years of instability of moving around and, being forced to, to live in motels or even in battered women’s shelters, because there were times I was carrying around no restraining orders and then eventually my mother would let my stepdad back into the house and it would just, the violence cycle would repeat itself.
As you can imagine that that kind of experience, you know, who wouldn’t want to run away from a life like that? I definitely felt trapped. I often felt unloved and neglected. My little sister has been like the joy of my life. I feel like a second mother to her in many ways more of a mom than our mother was during those years, because she was just so blinded by the ever niggling question of, do I stay or do I go, can this person change or will I not? And how long am I going to spend, trying to work through that with them before I say enough is enough.
So I joined the army. I joined the military when I was 17 and I had to wait until I was 18 to ship out. I started as an it specialist and then I ended up going through quite an interesting series of events before I wound up, taking on a new MOS and that was the 35 APOC Cryptologic Linguist specialty for the army.
Patrick Donovan: That sounds like fun?
Katharyn King: Yeah, it was, it was definitely more fun than being an it specialist.
Patrick Donovan: The experience is like a Cryptologic technician.
Katharyn King: Yes, it’s a, yeah, it’s the same thing in the Navy, basically the ratings of the Navy are very similar ,but I, you know, I, of course, and you should know that if you serve in the military as a, especially an Intel, components of the military, you’re going to serve with everyone. So, we work in JSOC, which means Joint Service Operations, but which means I work with everybody. I work with of course Army Air Force, Navy.
We worked with the Coast Guard, even, some missions when I was CONUS, when I was stationed in the United States and then I served on missions, OCONUS or outside of the continental United States. More or less what I really did was I listened to signals intelligence, and I translated that intelligence for the army and then I relayed that back to the tactical units. So, and then occasionally I had to go out on missions cause I was the only female in the unit who spoke French and they wouldn’t speak to males and they wouldn’t speak to a non-French speaker, so I I’d go out there and help with those missions.
But because of the nature of that MOS and because of operational security and, you know, those missions and those operations is still ongoing. I choose not to discuss the specifics of those, missions, you know, and I’m sure you understand.
Patrick Donovan: I was in the Navy and I served at the Pentagon in the Navy Command Center at the end of my career and we have the Intel section above the command center and we were doing up Intel briefs every morning before the SECDEF, SECNAV, CNO. So, I get it.
Katharyn King: You basically, you can’t tell anybody anything. You cannot discuss it. what you do or what exactly where you’re stationed. You don’t tell people where you’re going. You know, I didn’t even, you’re not even supposed to tell people where you’re going to basic training when you leave. But of course, everybody does. But they’re not supposed to and we were often chided for that when we were in the service, because Facebook was brand new still, and it was a very scary thing for the military and it still is.
But suffice to say the army was very good for me in many ways to help me get in shape, stay in shape. It helped me realize what I was capable of doing that. I was actually stronger and more physically capable of doing more than I thought I could. Also, it felt good to be a part of a community of people who have your back, no matter what loyalty and comradery that I never experienced before, since.
And that’s very good, but the things that experience actually in the course of doing my job definitely changed me in ways that are very difficult to talk about so, you know. I’m both proud and I also do carry some regret about the actions that our military takes in other parts of the world. And I, I don’t, I know that I’m older now and I’m wiser now and if I could do it over again, I definitely would make some different choices.
Patrick Donovan: I agree. And I share those, those thoughts that you just presented. There are some things in a regret about our military, but you know what? It was a proud time for me.
Katharyn King: Yeah.
Patrick Donovan: And I enjoyed serving our country proudly. So, moving on to that, you’re a woman of many talents. Tell our readers and listeners about the Above Normal podcast?
Katharyn King: That’s true. I, I do a lot. I am a writer. I’ve always been an artist since I was a child, an actress, you know, hasn’t been mentioned a child. I started producing relatively recently because I really wanted to, and I went to film school. I went to the filmmaking program they teach you everything and that’s very broad program it, where I went to school in LA. But. I love directing. I primarily love writing and directing and acting producing is a, it’s a labor of love that I do because it’s so popular today apparently, anyway, but yeah, no.
So, the Above Normal podcast is this brand new, fresh, culturally responsive podcast we just launched it. and we did this in partnership with, she was recently named a Chicago legend by city of Chicago and the debt and the NBA. Seven-time WNBA all-star two-time champion and Olympic gold medalist, Kathy Poindexter, the legend herself and Leave Normal Behind founders, Rob Picardo the His Brothers.
They got together a few years back, out of New Jersey and formed this movement. And it was really created for the sole purpose of fulfilling that core mission, which is to inspire people everywhere, all over the world, seven billion people to become the best version of themselves possible. To create things that truly matter in the world. Create conscious, mindful content that’s educational, inspiring, entertaining, and that’s really gonna move society forward in a progressive, not as scary or, you know, scary communist way, but just to, to inspire people, to get back to their communities, to lead with love, encourage others to do the same, and we’re doing that to this podcast, by inviting people to talk to us and chat with us.
You may not be the kind of person you would think we talked to. We often talk to like Jill Button does talk to a lot of folks who may not share every single or outwardly may not share our same exact perspective, but the more through the course of talking and chatting and get to know you getting to know each other, we find that we do actually have quite a few things in common, or we find our common ground.
We’re also talking to rising stars, people who are up and coming kids, young Gen-Z. We talked to a lot of those millennial trendsetters we’ve talked, you know, to famous DJs and famous fortune 500 company leaders. Our organization that currently boasts 70 founding members and those are the people who originally just pledged whatever they could afford. I pledge $1 and on the Executive Producer, Showrunner of this podcast. And I’m not only that, but I also am the chief creative officers. So, I’m in charge and responsible for all of the creativity I’m behind the artistic messaging of the show.
So that’s a wonderful opportunity for me to be able to show what I’m capable of doing as a producer but I’ve been in new media for a very long time. So I actually started off with Trek Cast, which was the number one tech, a themed podcast on iTunes for many, many years and I didn’t want to give up on the internet and new media, because I knew I had a feeling, all this of thing that was going to be the way the future is a podcasting while it seems very commonplace and oversaturated now, to me, it’s sort of been my bread and butter these last 10 years, and it’s nothing new, but I’m excited to be able to, bring podcasting into a more live, mobile, interactive, landscape, a digital landscape that allows people to interact with us live during our podcasts. That’s the whole point of it to really move people to dialogue and to, to action. So, I’m very proud of it.
Patrick Donovan: That sounds really interesting. It’s great that you’re doing a call to action for a global community. It really means a lot that you’re truly trying to make a difference in the world.
Katharyn King: It’s something I’ve, I’ve always felt. I totally felt called to do that since, since birth. I just I’ve always had that calling to that I was in the world to change it, to change it, to make it more equitable, to make it a better place for everyone. Not just, not just a few privileged.
Patrick Donovan: I agree. A hundred percent. You’re an avid writer. Talk to me about your nonfiction written and creative vocal nonfiction works.
Katharyn King: Yes, I consider myself to be very, similar to Isaac Asimov, very prolific, because I can write across a wide span variety of topics, genres, both nonfiction and fiction. I just enjoy the creative writing process and I also enjoy sharing my beliefs with people and opening dialogue.
So, my nonfiction work, is generally aimed at calls to action. It’s generally meant to be interactive. When I write something, I intend for my audience to respond to me and I want to open up those conversations, about controversial things, things that are very uncomfortable for people to talk about things like white privilege and white supremacy and why that’s still dangerous.
And I do talk a lot about this, and I have never really stopped. My family has a Jewish ancestry, heritage lineage. If it hadn’t been for my family leaving Russia when they did, I wouldn’t be here now. And I have the last stanza up from pastor Martin Niemoller also his creative pros is like a poem, a spoken word piece and it’s the one that famous one that, goes: “First, they came for the trade unionists and I was not a trade unionist, so I didn’t speak out. And then they came for the communists and then they came for the socialists,” and I have the very last stanza which says, “Then, they came from me and there was no one left to speak for me.”
That’s tattooed on my right forearm so that everyone can see it. I didn’t want to have something like a number of, concentration, camp victims, number tattooed on me. I find that very deeply disrespectful. so I wanted to do something else to honor the truth, which is that this isn’t going away the issue of white supremacy and the desire for white supremacists to take back quote unquote, what they believe is theirs.
I think that we need constant reminders of that. I’m a very visual person. So, my writing, is a visual reflection of my commitment to racial justice and equality, and so most of my nonfiction centers around, those themes of who are we really as humans? What do we really believe? What should our society really look like? And how do we make it happen? And then on the other side of that with the other creative nonfiction works is just basically a variety of, you know, vignettes, personal stories about, of interest to people from the theater world and, you know, my personal story is about how music has impacted my life and so it was basically more or less than that, but I very much am a poet. I began writing as a poet when I was very young, always very inspired by more than anyone maya Angelou. I think she was my greatest influence as a poet. I love poetry that doesn’t rhyme. I love that there were poems that didn’t have to fit that mold and I still write poetry, but, I was actually starting to take some of my old works and translate them to songs now.
And, which is a perfect artistic challenge for someone like me, who views themselves as multifaceted and wants to show people that there can be terrific intersectionality of all these different artistic mediums and. I have a place in that world too and, I’m enjoying that very much.
Patrick Donovan: Sounds great. And you know, you bring up white supremacy and everything and I can only go back and here we are: back to Star Trek and two of Gene’s original stories: The Day of the Dove and Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. And in the Day of the Dove, there’s a malignant force that is existed since the beginning of time when it invades the Enterprise causing chaos, bringing the crew to the brink of destruction under its influence. Crew members clash with the Klingons until Kirk comes up with a surprising new solution. It sounds like what we’re in today.
And Let That Be Your Last Battlefield is the two Bele and Lokai who are black on the left and black on the right. And he always says, well, Lokai’s people are black on the left. My people black on the right. Spock says, “I don’t see any difference.” [laughter] I think that’s what we’re facing right now, Gene Roddenberry, and I spoke to Gene I had the pleasure of speaking to him right before Next Generation came out when he was at home in 1987 and he answered the phone and it was wonderful. And they told his son, Eugene and Eugene was so impressed with that story. This is exactly what we’re facing right now. Wouldn’t you agree?
Katharyn King: Absolutely. This problem never went away. It was just been, it’s just been buried. It’s a Band-Aid, a very poor Band-Aid that we’ve slapped over deep, deep gaping wound in this and it really is, you know, it’s just, it’s really the bitter pill for a lot of people who are especially white to swallow and have to come to terms with it, the reckoning that we just. It’s been difficult. I’ve had very difficult conversations with my father about these, this, and other issues all my life. And just lately, you know, he, he texted me the other day to ask me if I was okay during the looting’s and the riots and stuff.
I’m thinking, why are you asking me if I’m okay? And so, it just triggered this long, very arduous, stressful conversation that landed us absolutely nowhere because in the end, when it comes down to, is that he just doesn’t, he just doesn’t see it. And he just doesn’t understand. And he doesn’t want to, when it comes down to is he’s just so old and in his ways, and you know, he’s just hiding from the world and trying to just get along and I don’t think that’s, that’s just not how I was raised. It shocked me because we had these conversations and we framed them around through the lens of Star Trek and even then, he basically just told me it’s just a fantasy.
It could just never happen, but he’s also a deeply devout Christian and me, like I say, you know, he doesn’t in his mind, the phrase all lives matter is the ultimate enlightened thing to say and anyone could say anything different. It’s just unenlightened. And I, and I say, you know that while I want to agree with that. It just goes back to the parable that Jesus taught about the sheep, that went astray and went to danger and that he had to protect that one. It didn’t mean that the other sheep wouldn’t want less valuable or precious to him.
It was just that this particular lamb has astray and needs our help. And so that’s the whole idea behind black lives matter. And that slogan she’s that yes, all lives matter, duh. If that were true, the truth is it’s not true. It’s a big fat lie. If that were true, we wouldn’t have to say black lives matter.
And that’s just, it. We do. When I walk down the street, people don’t know that I’m gay by looking at me unless I’m flipping, waiving my rainbow shit around. I look white, so therefore I get left alone. When I get stopped for a ticket, I don’t cringe in fear for my life. You know what I mean? I do get nervous going through TSA, but who doesn’t, I mean, airport security, eww.
Patrick Donovan: [laughter] But you don’t make jokes when you go through TSA.
Katharyn King: Oh, I sure don’t, you know, I sure don’t because I wouldn’t want to get I have been selected for a random passport, screening and actually had to go through a full body screening when I was going through Fiji to get to the New Zealand once because I don’t know why I’m just supposed to randomly selected.
And when I was serving in the military, I was the only white person in the room and so I understand what it’s like to actually do feel a little bit on the outside of things, but it’s nothing compared to what this country has wrought from its own soil. It’s tainted that this country is soiled in the blood of slaves and innocent people who were slaughtered and enslaved and oppressed and it’s just something that we just keep acting like we were over it with some, you know, we had a civil rights march and MLK walked the really long way and he fixed it and now it’s all better. And that’s just not true. The Klu Klux Klan, and the Proud Boys and Adam Waffen Division, a Patriot Front and National Socialist Liberation Front, whatever these people are, these neo-Nazis skinheads, they’re still out there.
They had kids and they raised their kids so the same ideologies as they did and this is a perfect opportunity to exploit this, to start a race war, to start the race war they’ve been wanting to just stoke and start for many, many decades. It’s just never going to go away. We have to stamp it out through raising our children to understand the beauty and diversity and to accept and embrace diversity as a naturally occurring phenomenon. Okay. You know, I believe in God, I don’t, I consider myself more ideas at this point in my life.
And that might change like at older, but at this point I consider myself to be a diva so I share many of the same philosophies of Thomas Payne and Thomas Jefferson, and some of the founding fathers who wrote dozens of pamphlets and essays on this very subject about what the future is and what God is and who God is and what the nature of God is and what he intended for us and what the Constitution was supposed to be about and why this and why that, and you know, what I don’t understand is why so the Christian nationalism, that scares me because it’s next to me of The Handmaid’s Tale. It worries me that the Christian nationalists, right you know, I hate to label people. I hate to put people in boxes this way, but the white supremacists are the ones who separated black people from them, not the other way around.
So when I was talking to Phyllis Schlafly’s daughter last week, We were talking about how, you know, everyone should be equal and we shouldn’t have black lives matter in this. And I said, well, no, we shouldn’t have to, but we do because unfortunately there’s still a lot of people in this world who still don’t think that they matter and that their lives have value and that they actually want to overthrow the government and declare a white ethno-state and cleanse the soul nation of every immigrant and everybody who is not Aryan or perceived beat white enough for them.
[00:21:45] And I keep telling these people that like, there’s no such thing as an Aryan race, and even if there were so what? They act like, the Aryan’s are some great Promethean, master race of, some sort of supernatural, master beings. And I just don’t understand if you’re a Christian, especially if you’re Christian and you don’t consider yourself to be a racist, but you won’t stand up and walk out and March in solidarity with people, you know, of being shot and beaten, constantly still, cause in the news every day. How can you sit there and tell me that all lives matter when that’s just not true, it’s just not true? You know? And I could go on about this and I’m going to continue to go out and protest and continue to join peacefully, and support, my black brothers and sisters, because I feel called to do that. It’s the right thing to do.
Patrick Donovan: Right. And I agree with you? And there’s about 15 minutes left and I want to get to the other really important things too, because all this is important. What’s the one thing important that I really want to get to is, The Seventh Rule a Star Trek podcast that you host with Cirroc Lofton, friends of the late Aaron Eisenberg. Could you elaborate on that? And I’ve got a couple more questions.
Katharyn King: Yeah. Okay, great. So essentially what happened was a couple years back Garrett Wang from Star Trek Voyager and Aaron Eisenberg from Star Trek Deep Space Nine, good buddies, longtime friends, decided to launch a Voyager re-watch podcast called Alpha Quadrant and, they ran into some problems then they, they dropped the show and then a few months later we heard that Aaron was coming back to do a podcast again, but this time it was going to be with Cirroc Lofton, his BFF from Star Trek Deep Space Nine, and another good friend of mine, a long time convention going friend his name is Ryan T Husk and, he’s a terrific guy. We decided that we would go ahead and do a Deep Space Nine rewatch show and so that’s kind of how it launched. I didn’t have anything really to do directly with the show for the first five or six months. I was a huge fan of it and just continue to support until one day they put out a call to action.
They were looking for interns to help support the podcast. And so, I threw my name in the ring and the rest is history. I’ve been a part of this beautiful, family experience ever since, how do I even describe it? It’s just been losing Aaron and not having him with us anymore.
It was really difficult to continue. But I’m glad that we are. I’m glad that we have decided to keep going with it. I know that the fans are definitely, glad that we’ve continued with the show. Aaron’s spirit definitely flows through us every day and every time we meet for the show and I really appreciate everything that he did for me, he was, he was so good to me.
I don’t even know how to describe it, and I’ll never forget that. And it’s because of him that I decided to become a living donor. So, I have my sister’s uncle has been on the transplant list for a kidney for years and years and years. So I’m undergoing the process to find out whether I can possibly donate my kidney.
Patrick Donovan: That’s fantastic. That’s a wonderful thing that you’re doing and remind everybody who Aaron Eisenberg was, what was his part that he played in case they don’t know?
Katharyn King: Sure thing. Aaron Eisenberg played the part of Nog a young Ferengi. The son of Quark on Star Trek Deep Space Nine. His character is quite an inspiration, for many veterans in particular because he perform amazing episode called: It’s Only a Paper Moon in which he, he had to portray a Starfleet officer, basically somebody who was serving in the military paramilitary organization who was going to war and loses his leg in combat. And he has to deal with the PTSD and just how to move forward from it. A great episode and one that Aaron was particularly proud to have been able to be in.
Patrick Donovan: I remember Aaron. He was such a wonderful man. I’ve never got the pleasure of meeting him, but it’s a sad thing that we’ve lost him. He was such a great soul. I want you to go into briefly. You’ve got several producing credits, please and, you also have numbers of awards, the Brian Fazio Scholarship Fellowship Award, the Bank of America Award for Outstanding Excellence and Drama. The President’s Education Award for Educational Excellence in Theater and the Polished Apple Award. But tell me about your producing credits first.
Katharyn King: Okay. well, I produce and currently I have two big projects I’m really working full steam ahead on. And the first one is Project Abaddon: Rise, the Destroyer, and that is a fantastic new upcoming sci-fi adventure franchise we’re trying to get launched. We’re really, crossing our fingers big time for Warner brothers. We’d love to see go to HBOMax soon but in the meantime, I’m helping to develop that I’m also helping to work through the script. So, I’m getting a little bit of writing credit for it too, which is fantastic. I love the story. Everyone’s saying it’s like Indiana Jones in Space and its Guardians of the Galaxy, the little bit of the Matrix mixed in. It’s original. I’m very honored to be a part of it and I hope that you’ll check out the website and the trailers and teases that we have up very soon.
Now the second one is called: Zzyzx 2021 and it is as an experimental sci-fi horror anthology series that we’ll be launching from YouTube and it may go to Netflix or Hulu, after we launch it next summer. So, this is a new show it’s designed to make you go, huh? What’s that about? What’s going on here? What is really happening?
It’s rooted in, surrealism and science fiction, of course and you’ll see, some horror elements of horror mixed in. So, it’s a little bit of American Horror Story, a little bit Black Mirror and a little bit of everything in between and I’m very proud to announce it. So, I hope you will check it out.
Another project that I also have coming up is…. Well, I’m actually a consulting producer on two other projects that are already underway and in development. And one is called Signs of Being the other one is called The Spy in the Eagle’s Nest. Spy in the Eagle’s nest I really want to push for a moment because this is a film that has actually already been made years and years ago as a very famous British spy film.
It’s a remake. So Anna Friel and Stephen Fry, the very well known beloved, much beloved British, entertainers and actors themselves are actually producing and behind the story of The Spy in the Eagle’s Nest and I’m assisting in consulting, producing on that project as well. And that’s about it.
I have an associate producer credit for The Seventh Rule, but basically, I’m just like I’m a big cheerleader and a promoter for them not really doing a lot of that. Backbreaking, you know, admin work that producers do for it.
Patrick Donovan: Sorry about that. I was on mute and I was talking to myself. [laughter] All these awards that you got…it was really amazing. Tell me about these awards?
Katharyn King: Well, I, many of them are academic in nature, so I have two master’s degrees and a bachelor’s degree. So, some of those awards I’ve received, in fellowships in recognition for my contribution to the department or to just the work that I did. So when I was teaching in San Fernando, I organized air band competitions, I was the one who would go out there and I sang with the kids to get the kids to come out and sing, so they really appreciated that kind of… I would just… I don’t give up on kids. I just don’t and I don’t accept failure. And I lead from the front I lead from behind beside them. Actually, I told the kids, every day that I would never ask them to do something that I wasn’t willing to do.
So, when I organized this massive air band competition, the kids were nervous about doing it. And you don’t even have to really sing. All you have to do is mouth. The words, and the kids are still nervous about being in front of the entire school. So, I went out there and I went first and I told them, I said, you know, I had rehearsed for a day and then went into the next day and did it.
So, if I can do it, you can do it and they appreciate that. So, the school awarded me for my, my commitment to getting kids on stage and, you know, and over that fear of performing on stage in front of people, Oh, it’s fantastic.
Patrick Donovan: It’s the old Partridge Family theory: Close your eyes, start singing, open one eye at a time and by the time you’ve opened your eyes, you’re already singing.
Katharyn King: Yeah. Yeah. That would make everyone feel naked because they would just, you know, that would just not help at all. They would just bust out in a giggle and I’d lose them. And these were six and seventh grade students. So these are middle school. These aren’t even high school kids. So they really lack that maturity.
Patrick Donovan: I want to touch on two more things. One is, What Would Janeway Do? What is that?
Katharyn King: Oh, it’s my autobiographical. tribute to Kate Mulgrew who portrayed Captain Janeway on Star Trek Voyager. It’s my homage to her. It’s my way of thanking her for inspiring me to become an actress and get involved in entertainment.
Patrick Donovan: That’s fantastic. I want to do a closing thing with you and, I’m going to turn the mic over to you so you can talk about anything you’d like in the next four minutes. Here’s your audience.
Katharyn King: Okay. Fantastic. Well, first of all, I just want to thank you for doing this and allowing me a space to chat. What I’m trying to do right now is show up for people who need me and be a voice of true change in the world.
And so, I hope that, you’ll be able to see that come through, shine through with my writing. I hope that, basically I just want people to, to come and talk to me and help us move our country forward to continue conversations. So this is. Just an opportunity for me to keep creating conscious content and sharing what I believe with people.
I truly am a positive person. I believe in humanity and I don’t believe this is the end for us, but it is the end of a very long, it should be, will be if I have anything to say about the end of the very long period of injustice and yeah just evil, evil action in the world that they were out to stop.
So that’s really it. I just want everyone to know I’m on. I see what’s going on and with you, I’m out there on the street with you to share in that solidarity and okay. That’s it. That’s really it!
Patrick Donovan: That’s great. Kevin D Benton and Nikki Warren want to interview you with iHeartRadio!
Katharyn King: Fantastic. That’s fun. That’s awesome. I look forward to that.
Patrick Donovan: I’ll put you in touch with them because they interviewed me and I interviewed them and they have a cow bell every time you do something great so, [laughter]
Katharyn King: That’s awesome.
Patrick Donovan: They’re just funny, absolutely nuts. But listen, it’s been a total pleasure speaking with you. Thank you very much for the time you’ve been taking with me. We’ll be able to put up some of your great works as well.
Some great pictures and links to everything that you have in your resume. Well, I look forward to having you again and talking more about some of the things you’re doing in future.
Katharyn King: One last thing I didn’t mention was I haven’t. I have a single out on iTunes and Spotify. And I encourage you to go listen to it, give it a written nice review for me and, let everybody know I’m doing music now. And under the music artist named: Thraeyce and that name comes from Kara Thraeyce Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica no less. I often am compared to her so I thought, well, I’ll go ahead and just take ownership of that name while I still can. So
Patrick Donovan: How do you say that again?
Katharyn King: It’s T-H-R-A-E-Y-C-E.
Patrick Donovan: And the name of your single again, please.
Katharyn King: Sure thing. It’s Nothing on the Earth.
Patrick Donovan: And I look forward to getting that link for you. Listen, you take care of, be safe when you protest. Okay.
Katharyn King: Right on. Thank you. Alright,
Patrick Donovan: Thank you. Bye, bye.
Katharyn King: Bye.
Links:
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