Gigi Parker Hudnall

Gigi is a native Texan who received her Bachelor's Degree in Acting and Directing from the school formerly known as Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University-San Marcos). She achieved her Master's Degree in Theatre for Youth from Arizona State University.

She has been teaching Creative Drama classes since 1988 and has taught for all ages in such prestigious theatres as Laguna Playhouse, Laguna Beach, CA and South Coast Repertoire Theatre, Costa Mesa, CA. She has also taught in elementary and middle schools, given lessons to the Cub Scouts and through a National Endowment of the Arts Grant worked with teachers in Arizona to teach them how to use Creative Drama in their own classrooms.

She returned to San Antonio in late 2000 and in 2001 began to direct musicals for St. Brigid Catholic Church. She worked with the music minister to help found their Performing Arts Ministry, producing Christmas and Easter musicals each year. The last Christmas production had close to 150 people participating including two choirs (children and adults), orchestra, lighting, sound, backstage crew and 40 actors (10 kids and 30 adults).

Gigi has always been interested in Theatre. She performed in almost every play while attending Incarnate Word High School, then kept it up at Southwest Texas State University, and performed a one-woman show, The Belle of Amherst, as part of her Graduate Thesis in Arizona, as well as many other productions in California.

Gigi has also worked in the corporate world. Along with her teaching, she worked at Fireman's Fund Insurance Company for eight years while in California, and was a manager at World Savings in San Antonio for seven. While there, she used her talents to train adults in things such as Presentation Skills, Team Performance, and World Class Service.

It was working in the corporate world and seeing her own children experience anxiety in front of an audience that prompted her to want to start Acting Up Creative Drama Academy. She realized that if we could help children at a young age to have "Social Presence", it would help them not only through school, but excel in their careers as adults.

She currently resides in San Antonio with her husband, David, her two sons, Kyle and Kenny, two dogs, Amber and Baby, and a cat named Spyra.