Jodie Stewart Wilk is a director, teacher, choreographer and set and prop designer. Throughout her 40+ year career, Jodie’s main goal has always been to enlighten novice and budding artists of their potential and to encourage them to cross over their ‘fear line,’ to discover the joy of her motto for the stage: “Be big! Be loud! Don’t be boring!”

 

Originally from Austin, Jodie was a member of the Kilgore College Rangerettes,1983-85, performing at the 1984 Republican National Convention nominating President Ronald Reagan and performing with Bob Hope twice at the Majestic Theatre in Dallas, 1984 and 1985.

 

As the Director of Fine Arts for Lucas Christian Academy, Lucas, Texas for five years and volunteer Director and Choreographer for Collin Creek Community Church of Plano for ten years, Jodie created numerous original musicals, plays and Broadway-style production numbers, including the musicals she co-authored with Paula Shumate, "Bound for Broadway,"  "Murders & Mayhem at Magruder Mansion," and "Ms. Mert’s Holly Jolly Merry Christmas Movie Night." 

 

Jodie has consulted and choreographed recreational and competitive hip hop, jazz, high kick and innovative prop routines for studios, drill teams and cheer squads in Texas, Connecticut, and Canada.

While directing the Lionettes Dance Team at Prestonwood Christian Academy, Plano, Texas, Jodie’s team earned three national titles with American Dance/Drill Team, as well as all Division I ratings for high kick, pom, prop, solo and duos for three consecutive years. Her competitive hip hop teams at Mississauga School of Dance in Canada also received highest ratings at all studio competitions.

 

She taught sixteen years at the critically acclaimed pre-professional dance studio, Academy of Dance Arts in Allen, Texas as the Musical Theatre and Hip Hop teacher, where her top student received 1st Overall Musical Theatre solo at NYCDA, 2019 and 4th Overall Musical Theatre solo at Revel, 2018, earning a scholarship into the Joffrey Ballet School Summer Musical Theatre Intensive in New York City.

 

Prior to her teaching career, Jodie earned her Bachelors of Science in Communications from the University of Texas at Austin and was later the Public Relations Coordinator for Ronald McDonald for the McDonald’s Owner/Operators of Connecticut and Western Massachusetts.

 

Married 36 years, Jodie and her husband, Greg, moved to Pittsburg, Texas, in 2017 fulfilling a lifelong dream of living on the lake. They have three children: Lena Wilk, who has a Masters in Choreography from the University of Jacksonville and a Bachelors in Dance from Texas State, and was the Assistant Director of the Dulles Dolls Dance Team, Sugarland, Texas and now lives with her husband and son in Witchita Falls; Liza Slaughter, actress, model, voiceover artist and dancer living with her husband in Charleston, SC, a University of Texas at Austin graduate in Theatre and Dance; and Cody, who graduated with a Business degree from the Walton School of Business at the University of Arkansas and is currently working at a large tech company in Plano.