New Pathway To Healing: An Interview With Kate O'Neal

Kate O’Neal is a professional singer and actress. She presently works full-time in the role of Casting Director for the American Idol Experience at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Kate began performing in her living room at the age of 2 for adoring parents who occasionally applauded her efforts. (That line was written by her father, whose sense of humor she inherited.) She never outgrew her insatiable need for attention. While majoring in Social and Behavioral Science at Indiana University, Kate joined her first band. She has performed professionally for over 25 years in music as varied as the hairstyles that went with them: punk, new wave, rock, folk, Irish, gospel, Christian rock, top 40, quartet and musical theater. As a country singer, she was the warm-up act for Willie Nelson, Randy Travis, Alan Jackson and others. She has also performed in numerous professional theatrical productions, most recently in Mad Cow Theater’s, Company as “Sarah” and Forbidden Broadway, as “Zombina” in Winter Garden Theater’s Zombies from the Beyond, “Sarah Jane Moore” in Mad Cow’s Assassins, “Rummy Mitchens” in Major Barbara and “Abby” in Jester Theater’s The Musical of Musicals, the Musical. Kate studied improv at SAK Comedy Lab in Orlando and performed in their ensemble production of Fourplay, the Improvised Musical. She originally joined the Disney cast as a Principal Performer for Disney Events Group and now also fills in as “Mia Mulch” for Hollywood Studio’s rock band Mulch, Sweat and Shears. She is preparing to perform a Cabaret in the next month or so at The Winter Park Playhouse, and is also working on a One-Woman Show, which she hopes to unveil by the end of 2011.