Dr. Kristyl D. Tift is a performing artist, educator, and scholar. Raised in a military family, she grew up primarily in Ft. Stewart and Hinesville, Georgia, and lived in California and Germany. Interested in the arts from a young age, Tift began dancing at age 2 and dreamed of becoming a singer. In 1992, at age 10, she was cast in her first memorable role and chosen to sing a solo in The Music Man produced at Würzburg American High School. During her Senior year at Liberty County High School (1996-2000), she played clarinet in Marching Band and Wind Ensemble. Senior year, she served as drum major of the Panther Marching Band. Transitioning from band to chorus and drama, her teacher Mr. Raymond Ellis, Jr., cast her in diverse character roles including Irena Synkova in I Never Saw Another Butterfly and Polly Peabody in Shop Til You Drop Dead. After high school graduation, she continued her music and theatre education at Georgia Southern University. As a Music Major (Vocal Performance emphasis), she performed in University Singers then quickly transitioned to Southern Chorale. She also performed in the Opera Theatre. Trained in voice by Dr. Maureen O. Simpson, she was chosen to represent her studio singing “Summertime” in the 2002 Studio Honors Recital. Finding a place where she could sing, dance, act, write and direct in the Theatre Department, Tift declared a Theatre Major in 2002. She put all of her talents, skills, and passion into the department serving as President of the Theatre and Performance Club (2003-2004); during her tenure, the student-led organization won competitions such as the Doo Dah Dance and Step Show for the first time. Her mentor, Mical R. Whitaker, Professor Emeritus of Theatre, cast her as Anna Douglass in In Splendid Error then as Angel Allen in Blues for an Alabama Sky—a performance that earned her an ACTF Best Actress nomination. She also performed roles in other mainstage plays including Essie Miller in Ah, Wilderness! and The Moon in Blood Wedding. Prior to graduation, she began applying to conservatory-style graduate Acting programs, of which the Actors Studio Drama School at The New School was her first choice.

Accepted to ASDS at age 22, Tift left Georgia to study in New York City from 2004 to 2007. She was trained by Studio members Susan Aston, Joseph Ragno, and Gene Lasko, learning Method-based acting techniques; Voice and Dialect approaches (Patricia Fletcher, Keith Buhl, Dr. Christopher Roselli, Scott Flaherty); Alexander Technique (Judith Grodowitz); Viewpoints; Modern Dance; and Stage Combat (Rick Sordelet). During this time, she began acting professionally earning credits off-off Broadway at Emerging Artists, Theatre for the New City, Bank Street Theatre, and the Michael Schimmel Theatre.

In 2007, she was invited to return to Georgia Southern University to teach as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre. That summer, she performing in summer stock theatre at The Theatre Barn near the Berkshires where she performed the roles of Ronnette in Little Shop of Horrors—a lifelong dream—and the gospel soloist Lula and the Landlady in Violet. At Georgia Southern, she taught courses in Acting, Directing, Voice, and Musical Theatre from fall 2007 to summer 2008. While there, she also directed the musical On Dragonfly Wings by Lisa Matsumoto. Outside of academia, she performed the roles of Olivia in Laddy Sartin’s Blessed Assurance and Ethel Waters in A Night With Langston Hughes at The Emma Kelly Theatre in Statesboro, Georgia, again under the direction of Mical Whitaker.

In summer 2008, she moved to Atlanta to pursue professional acting opportunities. Her first booking was the role of Aunt Em in True Colors Theatre Company’s last production of The Wiz directed by Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon; her co-stars included Halle Bailey and Chloë. In 2009, she acquired representation by Houghton Talent Agency while rehearsing at Aurora Theatre for the premiere of Gabriel Dean’s Buy My House, Please! In 2010, she was invited to perform the role of Bessie Smith in a concert reading of the musical Gut Bucket Blues, musical directed by the late JMichael Davis. Other regional credits include roles at the Alliance Theatre, Theatre Emory, and The Renaissance Project. Her film and television credits include roles in Hall Pass, Looper, “The Oval,” “Black Lightning,” “One Tree Hill,” “Necessary Roughness,” “House of Payne,” “Greenleaf,” “Genius: MLK/X” and “DTF: St. Louis”. Tift is also a professional voice artist, having narrated books for Harper Audio, Hachette Audio, Brilliance Audio and Tantor Audio. In 2021, she was awarded an Earphones Award by AudioFile Magazine for her narration of Brandy Colbert’s Black Birds In the Sky. Her most recent narration is Shanna Miles’s children’s book, The Rise of Issa Igwe (2024).

In 2011, Tift was accepted to the doctoral program in Department of Theatre and Film Studies at the University of Georgia. While there, she taught as a Graduate Teaching Assistant/Instructor of Record in the department and in the Institute for Women’s Studies. In 2017, she graduated with a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies and Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies. Her research areas include African American Performance; Black Feminist Performance; Queer-of-color Performance; Performances of Motherhood; Acting Theory; and Directing as Research.

Her scholarship has been acknowledged for its merit by The Princeton Society of Fellows and The Ford Foundation. In 2016, she was awarded a Dissertation Completion Award from The Graduate School at UGA. Her writing is published in Frontiers, a Women’s Studies Journal, The Black Theatre Review, Black Masks, New England Theatre Journal, Theatre Journal, and the Journal of American Drama and Theatre. She has served as a peer reviewer for Frontiers and Contemporary Women’s Writing. Her first manuscript, A Conditional Embrace: Black Queer Feminism in Performance, is under consideration for publication by several presses. This project was selected as Vanderbilt University’s Institutional Nominee for a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend (2024-25).

Since 2020, she has been an Assistant Professor of Acting and Directing in the Department of Theatre at Vanderbilt University. Prior to that, she taught at Kennesaw State University in the Theatre and Performance Studies Department. In 2021, she was awarded an Innovative Teaching Award from the College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt. In 2023, she was awarded a Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Fellowship. There, she directs one play a year and teaches courses in theatre and performance studies. In 2022, she directed Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky—the first full-length African American Theatre play produced in the Department of Theatre. In spring 2022, she directed Aishah Rahman’s Unfinished Women Cry In No Man’s Land While A Bird Dies In A Gilded Cage. In spring 2025, she will direct Qui Nguyen’s She Kills Monsters.