Ms. McKinney earned her BFA in Musical Theater with a minor in Choreography from The Boston Conservatory. She began her career at Walnut Hill School for the Arts, where she spent twenty-three years teaching, directing, and mentoring young artists. For more than three decades, she has guided acting and musical theater students through every stage of the college process—from creating balanced college lists and navigating Unified auditions to building audition packages, filming prescreens, and preparing for interviews. Her students have gone on to programs at Juilliard, Carnegie Mellon, University of Michigan, Syracuse, Point Park, NYU Tisch, CCM, Boston Conservatory, Emerson, Yale, Harvard, and many more. In the Boston area, Ms. McKinney performed as a soloist and served as Associate Artistic Director for the Sokolow Dance Foundation under Lorry May. Her theater credits include over 100 performances as Cassie in A Chorus Line, working with Donna McKechnie and other director-choreographers connected to Michael Bennett. She has also taught and choreographed for numerous theaters and schools, including SpeakEasy Stage Company, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, The Public Theater, Boston College, The Boston Conservatory, Emerson College, and several Massachusetts high schools and colleges. An award-winning choreographer, Ms. McKinney has earned multiple honors for her professional and high school productions, as well as Tommy Tune nominations for direction. She is also a Tony Award nominee for Excellence in Theater Education. Her choreography has appeared on stages such as Lincoln Center, Carnegie Music Hall, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Emerson Majestic, and The Hobby Center in Houston. Outside the rehearsal room, she loves baking, spending time outdoors, learning about dolphins, singing, and painting.