Covid-19 is tapping people's creativity and TPS is embracing that!
If there's one thing this virus has taught us, it's that staying connected to each other is key to our sanity. Music has been connecting communities all over the world and people are finding all kinds of ways to sing and make music together. We are excited to provide new virtual group performance opportunities for singers far and wide!
TPS is committed to doing our part to help keep our vulnerable communities safe.
Online Music Lessons
Concerts In Salt Lake City
photo by michael bateman
Kait Kingston
TPS Founder & Director
Lead Voice, Acting, Auditions & Performance Instructor | Harmonica Instructor
Kait Kingston has been a performer since she could walk. Starting out on Virginia Tanner's LAP for her very first modern dance class in SLC, UT, Kait began her career as a performer at the age of 5. Continuing on in dance, Kait became a company member with the Children's Dance Theatre Co. (CDT) and for the next 7 years, she was able to perform year-round with the company both locally and abroad in Canada, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Kait was also chosen as one of the young dancer girls in the Doris Humphrey piece Day On Earth, where she toured nationally with Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT), an adult dance company also based in SLC, UT. At the age of 12, Kait developed rheumatoid arthritis which effectively ended her dance career. Once in high school, Kait returned to performing in her school's rock band Rowtown, at Rowland-Hall St. Mark's as the band's drummer. There, she began singing backup vocals and realizing her love for musical performance. Kait then attended the University of Utah where she received her BFA from the Actor Training Program, then directed by the late, great Kenneth Washington. It was through Kenneth that Kait learned the core of her acting skills and how to
uncover and then embody the humanity of the written word through both classical and contemporary theatre. After this, she moved to California where she pursued and received her M.F.A. in Musical Theatre from San Diego State University (SDSU). It was while here that Kait began her teaching career. She founded small a private coaching business working with both undergraduate students as well as her peers in the MFA theatre program. She began coaching on the side as a result of her work as both an adjunct faculty at SDSU for various levels of acting courses and as the acting coach for the Kurt Weill show, Berlin To Broadway!
It was there in San Diego that The Performer Studio was born. After completing her master's thesis on character development for the performer and a third year of teaching at the University level, Kait moved to Los Angeles for 5 years where she completed 5 years of post-graduate study in vocal technique with world master voice teacher, Edward Sayegh and the American Musical Theatre Workshop. While in L.A. she ended up singing in several professional bands, including headlining her own blues band which is when she picked up the harmonica. As a result of her blues band, she was invited as a featured lead singer to tour with John Lee Hooker Jr. and his Grammy nominated band. In 2004 Kait returned to her roots in Salt Lake City, UT to continue both her performing and teaching career.
Kait: "My goal with each student is to help them to become the very best they can be as singers and/or musicians and to assist them as they find their musical "voice" in the world. In addition, I aim to lift their spirit during the time they spend with me in a lesson, so that when we finish, after the work they've done, they feel better, happier, more inspired, more empowered and more confident and driven than they did when the lesson began."
*Due to the ongoing pandemic, Kait and TPS are only offering online lessons, group courses and performance opportunities.
Kait: "I am devoted to offering creative growth and joyful activities while the world needs it the most. I am also devoted to being a part of the solution to ending this virus spread. TPS will continue to operate online throughout the pandemic and will continue to tap into our collective creativity to ensure that happens in a safe and responsible way. It takes a village to accomplish something big and this is our contribution."
Damaris Mendoza
Community Outreach Intern | Event Booking
Damaris Mendoza has been a student at TPS since 2009 and started when she was 12 years old. Since then, she has performed in countless TPS shows including several Tribute Concerts over the years. She has taken on different roles at the studio in her adult years and is now interning with the studio's community outreach, working with local retirement facilities to bring TPS students to perform for the residents there in a music therapy capacity. She has also been the assistant voice and performance instructor with TPS through the Promise South Salt Lake after-school performing arts program since the Fall of 2017. Damaris has also served in the role of TPS Box Office Manager and is in training to become a beginning vocal coach for the studio.
photo by michael bateman