Artist Spotlight: Regan Hicks

Photo courtesy of Regan Hicks

The Appalachian Preservation Project is proud to present Regan Hicks as this week’s artist spotlight.

Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your background?

My name's Reagan Hicks. I was born and raised in Houston, Texas. But I was also raised part-time in a little town called Steamboat Springs, Colorado, so I split time between those two places. I decided I wanted to study musical theater in high school. So then I moved from Houston to New York about six years ago to study musical theater at Molloy/CAP21. And then after graduating, especially during the pandemic, I really found my voice in more than just musical theater.

I started writing a lot and I started doing, you know, singing and songwriting and I learned how to play the acoustic guitar and a bunch of Celtic instruments and I just found this community and I fell in love with folk music. So I started doing that and now this has become a career. We have songwriting and playing folk music and now I do tiktok and i'm starting to branch out and do streaming, I have music on streaming platforms and do live gigs.

I still do musical theatre, and I'm also an actor, so I perform in, you know, TV and film as well, so I kind of do it all. I do a lot of things.

What inspired you to pursue acting?

I've always loved it. I remember distinctively, it's the weirdest thing that got me into it, but the movie/book, Nim’s Island. When I was a kid, I wanted to be, first of all, a veterinarian when I was a kid, like every little girl. I wanted to be a veterinarian. I love animals dearly, but, I wanted to do that. And then I watched Nim's Island and Abigail Breslin, I watched her performing and she got to perform with the animals and do all that.

And I would watch the behind the scenes religiously. Like I memorized pretty much the behind the scenes videos that I had on DVD. And I told my mom, I said, “I want to do that. I want to be in the movies. I want to act.” And then she put me in acting classes and then the rest is kind of history.

I just fell in love with it. And then specifically I chose musical theater to study because I also sing and I love the musical aspect of, you know, acting with music. So that's what got me into that. Up till high school, I still thought I wanted to be a veterinarian and I took some vet med classes in high school and realized, no, no, no, I'm an artist.

What kind of projects have you acted in?

I've done a lot. I think the first project I did out of college was one that I wrote, since I'm also a writer and songwriter, I wrote a musical during the pandemic called Liberty, which is based on a true story of Annie Moore, who was the first immigrant who came through Ellis Island when it opened from Ireland. And so I was inspired by her story and I said, someone has to write a show about that or tell her story. And I looked it up and no one had written a story about her before.

So I took it into my own hands and I wrote it during the pandemic. And then after I graduated, I got. Producers backed it up and I got a grant and I got a bunch of friends together and we put on a staged reading of it. I performed in that as well as obviously wrote it and put it on its feet and that was amazing.

And then after that I performed in All Shook Up, which is a musical with Elvis Presley music that I performed out on Long Island at a theater called the Madison. I've recently just done a bunch of short films and done basically whatever I can do, whatever jobs I can get or get, whatever scripts I can get my hands on, and performing in anything and everything.

What's been your favorite part to play?

Oh gosh, I don't know. There's so many. I feel like definitely the one I wrote has a special place in my heart because you know, I lived with the project for so long because I was breathing and writing it and bringing it to life and breathing in the character of Annie Moore.

But another special show, a role that I played was definitely in high school. I played Mary Poppins and that was just special because it was senior year and I finally decided I wanted to pursue musical theater and so that was the perfect show to just decide that, yeah, I want to do this. This is special and magical.

Do you prefer film or the stage?

That's a good question. A few years ago, I would have said stage, but now I kind of prefer film. I don't know. I mean, I guess they're kind of equal because, you know, they're similar, but they're also very different in the process of producing and storytelling. Because with a staged production, you rehearse it a bunch of times and then like it's once it's on his feet, that's the show. You live with it for much longer than you would if you were doing just a short film where it's much more relaxed and you have a lot of time, but then once it's done, it's done. You don't perform it again and again and again. So it's, you know, there's... differences and I think live theater will always have a special place in my heart.

But right now I'm really loving exploring film. And I think I'd love to do a lot more of that in the future.

How can people get in contact with you?
I have a website, I have TikTok, which is where I’m posting most of my music right now. I'm going to be putting things on Spotify and all major streaming platforms, like Soundcloud. I also have YouTube where I put my full length songs and covers, and Instagram.