About us

Becca Hopson, our Creative Director, has been bringing theater to youth in Olympia since 2014 through Broadway Bound West. We have reinvented ourselves as Olyacting coming out of the pandemic, and are looking forward to making a scene in our Olympia arts community!

Email us at olyacting@outlook.com

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A word from our Creative Director

Hi I’m Becca.

I’m an acting instructor in Olympia, Washington. I’ve dedicated my professional life to helping students discover and learn the art of performance.

I founded this program because I’m committed to helping kids gain skills, like speaking in front of people and developing persistence, that will serve them for the rest of their lives.

But there’s more to it than that.

I teach mainly because I love to watch acting students transform.

A paradoxical magic is at work when a person acts out the role of a fictional character. Somehow, they become more themselves than they were before. Impossible to explain, but you know it when you see it. It produces the kind of honest performance that makes you want to watch your favorite classic movie scene over and over.

I grew up in New York’s Hudson Valley, immersed in an extensive community of people in the acting world. Maybe it was a foregone conclusion that I’d choose a career in the performing arts.

I started teaching in the late 1990s and only stopped long enough to earn a degree in English Literature from Nottingham Trent University in England. That’s where I fell for a good script and learned the art of screenwriting, my other passion.

My teaching method is a result of these experiences, a combination of consistent attention, instruction, feedback, encouragement and intellectual exploration.

Acting in this environment can be a ritual of self-nourishment that helps individual students develop confidence and learn to focus.

And I believe that we thrive as individuals when we’re around people with wildly different realities, we do everything we can to create an inclusive, open community in each workshop.

The liberal arts create an empowering environment that nurtures cohesion and mutual appreciation. Olyacting (formerly Broadway Bound West) is a firm part of that tradition. We’re pro-art, pro-philosophy, pro-debate, pro-giggles and proud to be an outpost of open though, personal challenge, and grand accomplishment.

Take the next step with Broadway Bound West.