“I remember very vividly the first time I met Kate,” drama teacher Shana Prentiss begins. She sits at her desk in the back of her classroom during a free period, and sophomore Kate Loman sits across the room, working on an essay, sometimes yelling out “how do you spell…” or asking for advice for her personal essay.

Loman and Prentiss laugh and joke with each other many times throughout the course of this free period. No one would guess they only met a few months before.

“It was at the open house this year,” Prentiss says, “and she walked up to me and, very direct, without her mother…she walked up to me and she said ‘hi, my name is Kate. I’m transferring to St. Teresa’s because I love theater.’”

Loman had to clarify, though. She wasn’t transferring the next year like many of the open house attendees Prentiss had met that day. She would be transferring to STA the next semester to continue her sophomore year, which had begun at Lee’s Summit North High School.

So, when Loman auditioned for the winter play, she wasn’t technically an STA student.

She stood in a semi-circle among girls with plaid skirts wearing jeans and her striped Ralph Lauren polo. Even though Loman laughed along with the other students who auditioned, she still remembers feeling a bit uneasy among people she didn’t know.

“I was nervous to try out because I only knew one person, so it was a little nerve wracking to meet everybody all at once,” Loman said. I was very overwhelmed because I had to work with people I’d never seen or worked with before.”

Still, she admits, “it was pretty fun.”

Her sole motivation for transferring to STA wasn’t theater, though. She and her mother heavily considered academics, and the more they talked to STA officials, the more they decided it would be best to transfer mid-year.

“We decided that would be good for me [to transfer],” Loman said. “Then I was talking to the athletic director about playing lacrosse here and what it took to try out and stuff and he asked me how long I’d been playing.”

She answered with “five years.” He replied “‘well then you should just transfer at semester, we could use another girl on the team,'” Loman recalled.

So, by the time she transferred, Kate Loman was already cast as Mrs. Trotsky in the Variations of Trotsky’s Death.

According to Prentiss, Loman has “a lot of talent.”

Prentiss decided to cast her because “I just knew that she would be able to do anything she needed to do,” Prentiss said.

“Anything” includes portraying the doting wife of an evil dictator named Trotsky who dies eight times throughout the one-act play which airs Feb. 18 to Feb. 20 alongside eight other one-act plays.

Loman hopes to continue pursuing fine arts at STA, but her ultimate dream is to be a veterinarian for the Kentucky Derby, and she hopes her career at STA will put her one step closer to fulfilling that dream.

“The Kentucky Derby is very prestigious, and it’s very hard to be a vet for anybody if they have multi-million dollar horses,” Loman said. “They want to make sure they’re getting the best of the best, so I want to prove that I am the best of the best.”

For now, Loman tries to bring the best to her character and to her academics at STA.

Sophomore Anna Campbell, who describes Loman as “outgoing” and “friendly” plays Mr. Trotsky, the husband of Loman’s character.

Though Loman differs from her character in many ways, Campbell said Loman is “very good at [portraying] her character.”

Prentiss agreed, noting Loman’s acting talent.

“It’s about understanding what the character is, and how you can bring it to life and she’s totally capable of that,” Prentiss said.”