KOREY SAYRE
Born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, Korey Sayre is an aspiring artist who fell in love with theatre at a very young age. Korey is currently working on getting his BA in Theatre from the University of Texas A&M at Corpus Christi with an emphasis on acting and directing. When Korey is not in school, he goes home for the summer to teach acting at a children's performing arts company called Time to Shine Performing Arts LLC. Korey loves to write, dance, and binge-watch old sitcoms his favorite being How I Met Your Mother. Korey is currently working on a production of WEST SIDE STORY, where he will be portraying the role of Riff. Korey has developed a new love of playwriting and has composed a few of his own ten-minute plays that have been produced at his university in the winter of 2024. Whether he's directing, writing, acting, or dancing
Korey's favorite thing to do is tell a story!
Artist Statement
“We live in what is, but we find a thousand ways not to face it. Great theatre strengthens our faculty to face it”.
Playwright, Thornton Wilder, perfectly encapsulates why I am an artist: to help people confront reality. Through theatre, I aim to break down the barriers we put up and create moments where the audience can truly see themselves and the world around them.
For the first 18 years of my life, I lived in the same house on the same street in the same town of Keller, Texas. An opportunity in theatre brought me out to Corpus Christi, Texas where I found a university that I would call home for four years. During this time I would go on to write and star in a one-man show, have two of my 10-minute plays produced, act in over a dozen projects, and try to figure out what the hell I wanted to do with my life. Throughout grade school, I wanted to be an engineer. But I decided that the world of theatre was a much more lucrative business. The one thing that remained constant through my professional development is the desire to create.
I was always the expressive kid in the class who loved to make other people laugh. As I aged I grew to learn that it’s not just laughter I could beckon from others. Fear, anger, empathy, passion, joy, all these emotions everyone has felt, I could evoke at a moment's notice.
Why do I create theatre? Other than the money there is not a definite answer to that question. Maybe it's to prove the doubters wrong, to escape into another character, or simply because I enjoy the attention. Who knows? The answer is ever-changing. Right now, I am focused on bridging the worlds between actor and character by acknowledging reality in a fictional setting. A lot of people view the world in a black-and-white sense. But in the theatre, when I create, not only do I get to acknowledge the gray, I get to live in it.
LIFE IS NOT A FUCKING PLAY. There are no lights, costumes, or rehearsals. Life is what is. And people are too occupied to sit down and observe life unfold in front of their very eyes. That is why through my work I envision a place where an audience can acknowledge reality, but a specific type of reality. A reality in which they can hear a line that they associate with or see themselves live on stage, or just maybe stop time for one second for them to realize life doesn’t entirely suck.
I am fascinated by the unexpected. When an individual goes to a play they don’t expect to be having a conversation with one of the actors in front of an audience full of strangers. Witnessing an unscripted interaction between people is something that is taken for granted. Genuine human interactions are scarce and it is crucial to savor every one of them.
I am inspired by scripts like Duncan Macmillan’s Every Brilliant Thing, David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face, and Aaron Posner’s Stupid Fucking Bird. These shows deviate from traditional play structure in some way shape or form and provide an audience member to feel like they are part of a story.
That is what my work is catered towards. Whether I’m writing, directing, or acting, I am constructing an environment for an audience to interact with what isn’t so they can confront or face what is.