Bio
While she may be possessed of a small frame and a quirkily sweet demeanor, don’t be fooled by Olivia Killingsworth’s innocuous-looking façade. Beneath it lurks the smoldering heart of a passionate artist, dedicated to bringing stories to vivid, truthful life. It seems only fitting then that Killingsworth has been described as a “little firecracker with a big bang”, since she often plays characters who suppress intense emotional lives under seemingly calm exteriors, appearing to vacillate between cool collectedness in one moment and explosive outbursts in the next.
This talent for duality was most recently on view in stark detail in Killingsworth’s performance in Alien Child, at the T. Schreiber Studio in New York. As Charlie, a 17-year-old girl with severe autism, Killingsworth portrayed the withdrawn, erratic and often wildly anguished behavior of an autistic teen, as well as the playwright’s “what-if” version of Charlie had she been a “normal” child, carefree and full of life.
Killingsworth then leaned into the “bang” of the firecracker for her role as a lone graffiti artist adrift in a post-apocalyptic landscape in Robot Girl, a one-act presented as part of The Shelter Presents: Art at the Flamboyán Theater in New York. The critics noticed her “pinball-like energy” and “hip-hop intensity”, naming her a “frightening dynamo in the name of art.”
Not even musical theater is safe from Killingsworth’s mischievousness: she doubled as a raucous boy and a simpering girl (as well as a strange orange creature from the sea with an inordinate love of goats) in Center Theatre Group’s The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Los Angeles.
As a child, Killingsworth was precocious and did well in school, but had trouble making friends and “fitting in”. Several family relocations—first from Boston, Massachusetts to Paris, France, then to Palo Alto, California—contributed to her sense of being an outsider. She found a home and refuge in the theater, hanging out backstage and participating in productions at local community theaters. In particular, she credits her experiences as a participant at the Palo Alto Children’s Theater in helping her to develop an appreciation for good storytelling, a strong work ethic, and the courage to pursue acting as a career. Killingsworth went on to refine her craft at Occidental College in Los Angeles, the British American Drama Academy in London, the Larry Moss Studio in Santa Monica, and the T. Schreiber Studio in New York.
Killingsworth recently branched out into directing for the theater, making her New York directorial debut with Night of the Living, a one-act play presented as part of The Shelter’s Night Windows, followed by the direction of Terror on Haxos 9, part of The Shelter Presents: Fairy Tale.
