Kiyan's Got Life

Connecticut- On a sidewalk of downtown New Haven, Kaitlin Kiyan is windblown. A frigid breeze dances her long, dark brown hair behind her and exposes a small, red, beaded feather dangling from her left year. “Oh yea- this.’ Kaitlin says as she fingers the earring, “It’s part of my costume. I forgot to take it off last night.”

Katie, as she introduces herself, is twenty years old. The details of her day-to-day life are typical of an American girl her age; she drinks soy lattes and texts on a Blackberry, she skypes with friends and wants to travel the world. She owns many pairs of sunglasses and lives for her family, friends and music. She’s figuring out who she is just like the rest of us. Unlike the rest of us, Katie is a professional actor and singer: currently performing in the national tour of the 2009 Broadway revival of HAIR.

A native of Hawaii, Katie moved to New York City when she was fourteen after being accepted into the vocal program at LaGuardia High School. She and her mother began putting a life together in the city while her father and siblings remained at home in Waipahu, Hawaii. Being away from them was hard, Katie said, “To us family is everything. But I couldn’t imagine what my life would be if I hadn’t gone to LaGuardia. I certainly wouldn’t be here right now.” She gently taps the table we are sitting at in Starbucks; a gesture that could represent ’here’ meaning the current tour, the show, or possibly where she’s at and who she is as a person at this given moment.

Katie began her journey with Hair at LaGuardia, playing the character Crissy in a student production of the musical. Of the experience Katie said, “It was the first play at that school I was ever cast in. It was really exciting, I loved the show and Crissy is so fun to play. She’s a kid at heart so you get to be silly, but there’s a lot of depth to her too.”

She then auditioned and was cast in The Public Theater’s 2007 concert celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the show. The concert performances only lasted a few days but were successful enough to prompt a full-scale, summer production in 2008 at Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The show transferred to Broadway, and Katie followed, performing in eight shows per week for a year.

As part of ‘The Tribe;’ the collective group of counter-culture youth living, loving, experimenting and protesting to the Vietnam War in the New York City of 1967, Katie was the youngest cast member. “I was eighteen when we went to Broadway. But I had known most of them for two years. After knowing one another for that long age doesn’t really matter.”

Katie stood out on stage; her track in the tribe had her belting lyrics about the sexual charisma of black boys, singing effortless, birdlike harmonies between hits from a shared joint, and pleading along with the rest of the tribe to Let the Sunshine in- all while conveying the joy and frustration of being young in a bright yellow top and long, shiny pigtails decorated with daisies.

Last March the show opened in London and Katie spent six months doing her thing in the UK. She sites living in London as one of the greater experiences in her life. “It was kind of like summer camp. A few of my really close friends and I lived in the same building; our flats were all on top of each other. It was just a really happy time. “ Said Katie.

For the tour; which kicked off this week in New Haven, Katie is playing the role of Crissy, the character she started out with in high school and understudied-performing occasionally over the last couple years. After seeing several actors perform the role in front of her she said, “You can’t copy something. You just have to go with what feels right for you. If someone doesn’t like a decision I make with the character then..well ..you can’t make everyone happy all the time.” But Katie insists she’s a people-pleaser at heart and generally very easy going.

Katie finds the songs Walking in Space and 3-5-0-0 the most fun to perform each night, alluding to an intensity that may lie just below her easy smile. The former song being about where marijuana can bring you ‘in this dive we rediscover sensation’ and the later being an incredibly passionate song on the horrors of war, with each character writhing across stage in agony with some wound or another. Prisoners in Niggertown it’s a dirty little war. Three five zero zero. Take weapons up and begin to kill, watch the long, long armies drifting home.

James Rado, who co-wrote HAIR in 1964 and starred in it when it was first produced in 1967, believes that Katie is a great example of what it means to be young. “She’s incredibly talented. Yes. Of course there’s a future for her in musical theater, but she’s also doing her own thing. She’s not conforming, she’s inspiring others.” Said Rado. “She especially is helping bring the meaning of Hair to her own generation. Something that’s really exciting for me.”

Katie seems like a genuinely kind person. She believes in love and ukuleles and friends and learning. She’s kind to fans. While walking towards the theater she says hello to a man whose face began to glow in her presence. He tells her to have some of the chocolate he left backstage for the cast, she thanks him, chats a bit, then out of his ear shot tells me he’s there a lot. “Some people are really into it. Like this. And us. But it’s mostly harmless. And if I can brighten their day then of course I’m going to.”

Katie is serious yet silly. She is an incredible example of how our generation, stuck somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, is redefining the meaning of youth and that there is no such thing as normal. We say goodbye as slips into the theater’s back door. An hour later, in my nose bleeds seats, I see Katie run onto stage and wave at the packed theater, like she’s meeting every single person individually. She’s Crissy now but I can still see Katie in her laugh, her spunk and vague nativity. She can do this for the rest of her life, but I think if she were to change her mind tomorrow and do something completely different, she’d be just as successful at that. In twenty years Katie has experienced more than most of us can hope to, and to quote the show- she’s ‘got life.’ And she can do anything she sets her sights to with it.

(photos courtesy of Kiyan's facebook profile.)