Katie Beck is a creative community builder, director, writer, facilitator, speaker, and artivist who works to build spaces that highlight and prioritize underrepresented voices. Since establishing Gum-Dip Theatre in 2016, Katie has produced or directed nearly 80 performances that celebrate, challenge, and reinvent community identity through neighborhood story circles and pay-what-you-can performances. GDT creates theatre as a vehicle for practicing different factual and imaginary versions of oneself, for representing the narratives that are often ignored, and for elevating voices and identities that are not included in the mainstream. Recent directing and devising credits include Denied Admission, My North Hill, Imprisoned, Namaste-WHAT?, In Search of Alternative Dreams, and Into the Mold. Some of her playwriting highlights include Obnoxiously Unconstitutional (upcoming), Rebranding the City: a Humanizing Tour of Akron, Into the Mold, and A Town For Us. In 2017, she helped to open the Exchange House with the Better Block Foundation, which is a cultural hub and international hostel that celebrates cultures and cultivates community capacity through partnerships, programming, and built environment.

At the beginning of 2020, she stepped into the role of Executive Director for North Akron Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit building upon physical infrastructure, cultural heart, creative spirit, history, and entrepreneurial drive of artists and local small business owners in North Hill. NACDC focuses on entrepreneurship and economic development, creative placemaking, and building social cohesion through 5 public spaces that include the Exchange House, the Backyard (outdoor pocket park), NoHi Pop-up (rotating restaurant), NoTique (mixed-use retail), and the upcoming Market House (women-focused microbusiness incubator).

Katie serves as a business board member for the Theatre Track of Firestone CLC's Performing Arts Academy, a board member for Akron Interfaith Immigration Advocates, and a member of Torchbearers Akron class of 2020. She is a recipient of Greater Akron Chamber’s ’30 for the Future’ Award in 2019, Arts Alive! Outstanding Artist in Theatre Award in 2018, Akron Fellowship for League of Creative Interventionists in 2017, and two Knight Foundation Arts Challenge Awards in 2016 and 2019. Katie holds a Bachelor’s of Art in Theatre, Writing, and Community and Justice Studies from Allegheny College in Meadville, PA.