Alumni Spotlight: Katie Hopsicker
Dance alum Katie Hopsicker (B.F.A. '21) shares how the skills she learned in the Meadows dance program helps behind the scenes of her job on the talent team at Saturday Night Live.
Katie Hopsicker (B.F.A. ’21) is this week’s featured alum in our new Alumni Spotlight series for the This Week at Meadows e-newsletter. Each week, a different Meadows alum will be highlighted for their accomplishments post-graduation.
When Katie Hopsicker enrolled at Meadows to follow her dream of dancing at the collegiate level, she never would have imagined that her college experience would eventually lead her to the set of Saturday Night Live as a Talent Production Assistant. Though the COVID-19 shutdown threw a bit of a wrench into things during her junior year, she continued to persevere with her studies and even went on to earn a master’s degree in arts journalism & communications from Syracuse University in 2022. Her combined knowledge of both performing arts and communications eventually led her to NBCUniversal’s Program in New York City.
Since September of last year, Hopsicker has been part of the Page Program, which is a rotational program that gave her the opportunity to work on a variety of shows around NBC. After stints on Audience Team at Late Night with Seth Meyers, and the Social Media Team at the TODAY Show, she is currently on assignment as a Production Assistant on the Talent Team at Saturday Night Live. Her role as a Talent Production Assistant allows her to utilize a variety of skills she cultivated during her time at SMU.
“Meadows allowed me to work on my dancing and choreographic capabilities to reach a professional level, while also enabling me to expand other skillsets and become a multidisciplinary artist and human,” explains Hopsicker, who teaches dance and choreographs for studios around Upstate New York in her spare time. “Dance taught me valuable skills that transfer to working on a show because I understand what being a performer is like.”
The Talent Team handles the care of the cast members, hosts, musical guests, and other guests or audience members that come to the Saturday Night Live show each week. Hopsicker’s main job on the team is to support the talent producers in any tasks that come up, and also help out the casting team with the coordination of background actors and dancers on set. This is where her experience not only in the performing arts world, but being a dancer and performer herself, allow her to shine.
“While the studios at Rockefeller Center may seem like a far cry from the Bob Hope Theatre, the reality is that the core values of a performance stay true,” she says. “In both a dance concert and in a comedic television program, people have a vision, are passionate about their work, and want to put on the best show possible.”
Something she contributes to staying open to new opportunities and always leaving doors open as she travels down her professional path. In addition to her talent work on SNL and dance work in various studios, Hopsicker has also participated in choreography festivals and hopes to continue that in the future. Her ultimate career goal? To become a professional choreographer for television and film, which could eventually result in a very full-circle moment.
“Who knows, maybe one day I can choreograph for SNL!”