Kate Dunn Kennedy

Kate was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Chatham, New Jersey where her family owned and operated the historic and renowned Parrot Mill Inn, circa 1780, which proved to be an especially creative environment. Kennedy would call it "pure entertainment" being constantly surrounded by an array of impressive, colorful and interesting world travelers lodging at the Inn. She relocated to nearby New York City and studied painting and sculpture at Marymount Manhattan College graduating with a BFA degree in fine arts. Kennedy then moved to Boston for post grad studies in Art History at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Kennedy returned to New York City starting work at Ogilvy & Mather as an Art Buyer. Although at the time, she was primarily surrounded by still photography, her main interest was always in film. Kennedy began her casting director career in 1993, on Amy Tan's "Joy Luck Club", directed by Wayne Wang as an unpaid, uncredited, location casting assistant. Shortly after her next film "When A Man Loves A Woman", she received her first major casting director job and relocated to Los Angeles to work with Original Films from 1994-1998, regularly casting for major Music Videos for MTV and BMI Music. Kennedy has worked with Dave Matthews, The Wallflowers, Rage Against The Machine, RuPaul, Matchbox Twenty, Matthew Sweet, Michael Jackson, Bush, Eve 6 and Shaquille O'Neal with directors John Hillcoat, Roman Coppola and Joseph Kahn, to name a few.

In the following years, Kennedy opened Kennedy Casting Studio on Cahuenga Boulevard, Los Angeles and began to focus primarily on casting film, television and commercials working with many of the world's leading directors, including Herbert Ross, Jay Roach, Milos Forman, Joel Schumacher, Frank Marshall, Luis Mandoki, Mick Jackson, Steven E. de Souza, Tim Burton, Frank Oz, Sean Penn, Bobby Roth, Paul W.S. Anderson, Michael Bay among others.

Kennedy lives and works between New York and Los Angeles.

In 2005, Kate Kennedy opened a Film and Drama Artist Development Program for Teens in Summit, NJ named PeachCraft Studios of Dramatic Arts, Creative Voice and Filmmaking, while continuing to produce films out of LA. Kennedy became a Michael Chekhov Technique Acting instructor after training with the American actress and Michael Chekhov Executrix, Mala Powers. Meanwhile, back at the Inn, Kennedy's mother became ill with cancer having Kennedy dividing her time with care-taking duties together with her 4 siblings while maintaining her work duties. During this time she produced 54 Short Films with an outstanding band of creatives including ...Tony Jannelli, Andy Breckman, Kranti Pally and Craig Newman to name a few. All of the films were selected to compete in festivals. She also has produced 12 musicals.

In March of 2013, it was announced that Kennedy opened Merging Artists, her talent management firm and continues to work between New York and Los Angeles.