Today we’d like to introduce you to Kirsten Jones
Hi Kirsten, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I knew I wanted to be an actor from a very young age; four, to be specific. I was happiest when I was performing made-up plays for my family in my living room and I knew I wanted to do that for the rest of my life.
By fifteen I knew I had to leave my hometown in George, South Africa, to start my career so I moved to England to study performance full-time at Redroofs’ Theater School.
Following this I got a dramatic scholarship to Ashbourne College to finish my A-Levels. Here I wrote a play, Case Number, that was taken to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
I loved writing too and I decided to study it further by getting my BA (Hons) in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia.
I moved to San Francisco to do a Marketing Internship for an art gallery. This is when COVID hit. I had a lot of time to think, and I realized I was unhappy doing anything other than acting. So got a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts to study Acting and I graduated in 2023.
I am so happy to now be a working actor. I am currently playing Mathilda Dembowski in ‘The Year Without a Summer’ at the Loft Ensemble, running until July 21st.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I don’t think a career in acting can be a smooth road for most people.
It is a journey of trust in yourself. It is choosing, every day, your love for acting over almost everything else.
I moved away from my family at fifteen and that has been my hardest obstacle. I’m twenty-eight now and I make sure to go to South Africa once a year but it’s not enough time and it never will be. The hardest thing to deal with is seeing your family age without you there. But our connections to each other haven’t changed through distance and they won’t.
Another obstacle is the financial difficulty of pursuing acting. I think a career in acting looks differently to what a lot of people expect. I perform regularly in plays but still I have, and need, two part-time jobs to pay my rent. All the actors I know work extremely hard to be able to afford to act. To me, acting is a privilege, and I fight hard to do it.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I specialize in Acting for Theater and playwriting. Specifically, I love performing in dystopian, experimental, period and satirical pieces. As someone with chronic depression I am drawn to plays that deal with mental health. One of my driving forces within acting is to accurately portray what depression actually looks like.
From those who have seen me perform, I am known for bringing intelligence, depth and specificity to the characters I play. I am good at embodying characters with mental health issues as it’s something I suffer from and deeply care about.
What sets me apart is my ability to understand characters, their arcs and motivations quickly. This comes from my background in studying and practicing writing. I like to breakdown texts, I like to analyze scripts word-by-word and I think that specificity shows in my performances.
I am most proud of my current performance as Matilda Dembowski in Greer DuBois’ ‘The Year Without a Summer’. The play is a satire of a period piece (think Bridgerton on drugs). What I’m most proud of is finding the ability to balance trauma and comedy within the same character. It’s been tough work but I think I’ve gotten the balance right.
This year I co-wrote a play with Dani True entitled ‘Something You Don’t Know’ and we just found out it is being produced for Season 12 of the Loft Ensemble, NoHo. This is a huge accomplishment for both of us as over 500 plays were submitted and our play was chosen as 1 of 8.
How do you think about luck?
I’ve been extremely lucky to have a family that supports me in my acting career. I’ve never been made to feel like it was a silly idea or unobtainable; instead they have wished me the best and been there through the hard times.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://resumes.actorsaccess.com/2152484-6034707
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kirsten._.jones/
