
In fourth grade, Catherine Haena Kim could not muster the courage to audition for the female lead of her school's production of William Shakespeare's “The Tempest.” But her teachers saw something in the way she held herself in the classroom.
“My teachers actually gave me the part because whenever I did speak up, I was very animated and expressive,” Kim said. “When I did this play, I honestly think it’s one of the first times I actually felt seen and special in a way that I think I really hadn’t before that.”