Whitney Thompson
On Her Way
Spend an hour with Whitney Thompson and you'll believe in following dreams. At 21, this aspiring starlet has taken her talents from Hurricane, West Virginia, to the Big Apple and beyond. Now she is across the Atlantic studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London for a semester.
"I really don't know where I'm going until I get there," says Whitney, who wouldn't have it any other way. "I have so many things I want to do that I'd rather just pretend to do them all. That's why I'm an actor."
In the eighth grade a shy Whitney accompanied a friend to a Children's Theatre audition in Charleston. She landed a part in the chorus-an experience she says changed her life. "If I hadn't gone to that audition, I don't know what I'd be doing."
More parts followed, but it was not landing a role in The Diary of Anne Frank with Kanawha Players at age 16 that introduced her to behind the scenes theatre. Instead of acting, she worked as a tech on the show. "It was the best thing I could have done because I got to see the life and death of a play," she says.
Whitney has remained as involved behind the curtain as in the spotlight. On top of her theatre and political science studies at New York University, where she's a junior, she has performed in other plays. She also works as production manager of the television show Kaleidoscope.
Last year, she started a theatre company with a fellow NYU student. The company, called the Nola Project, borrowed and raised $1,000 to take its first production, The Cripple of Inishmaan by Martin McDonagh, to New Orleans. After getting an NYU director on board and a 20-hour bus ride, the play opened on August 12. It had a successful run until Hurricane Katrina struck on August 25 and the cast was forced to evacuate.
"We were really afraid that people wouldn't come. The first night we had 70, the second night sold out and the third we had to turn people away. It was a great experience; at least we learned that we could put on a show and do well."
Whitney says her mother put her on a plane to New York City and told her to follow her dreams. Now she's not just following them-she's living them.
