Willa Catherine Cotten, affectionately called “Katy”, is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. From 2003 to 2008/2015 she was cast in several small roles in the Langston Hughes play entitled Black Nativity, directed by Oronde Sharif, and in 2006 was nominated by the AACTA (African American Council for The Arts) Onyx Awards as best supporting actress in a musical or revue. As a part of the Kuntu Repertory Theatre under the direction of Dr. Vernell Lillie, Katy was cast as Sarah Vaughn in a Rob Penny production entitled Clean Drums, 2009 and was also cast as the wife of the great Negro Baseball League pitcher Satchel Paige in Among the Best, 2009. Katy was cast in several roles in Raisin, the musical based on Lorraine Hansberry's “A Raisin in the Sun”, 2010; her roles included an understudy for Beneatha, Althea the bar proprietor, and several dance numbers. She was cast as an ex-wife in the play entitled I Gotcha, The Story of Joe Tex and the Soul Clan, 2010, a New Horizon Theatre Production. Katy also experienced her first Pittsburgh Playwrights Black and White festival in a lead role in 2014. In 2018, as a part of the Washington Community Theater production Hairspray, she was cast as Motormouth Maybelle. Katy is delighted to be a part of this Lorenzo Boone production!