Kirsta is from a scenic suburb of Los Angeles called Palos Verdes.  The youngest of four children she was always drawn to exploring creative ways to express herself.  When she was five she enrolled in art classes discovering her first of many passions.  Later, in junior high, she took her first acting class and she knew that it sparked something in her that she had never experienced before.  She suddenly felt that she had an avenue to communicate with others on a deeper level.  In high school she devoted all of her time to theater.  She was president of her drama club and in her senior year she got her first taste of directing with their student production of “The Breakfast Club”.

She took that fervor across the country to study theater and art at the prestigious New York University.  There she studied acting at the Stella Adler Studio.  She went on to do a very selective Growtowski Intensive through Fordham University in Orvietto, Italy, and she completed a Shakespeare intensive in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts with Geoff Bullen and Julian Glover.  She graduated cum laude, and dove into the New York theater scene.

She worked extensively off-Broadway.  She played a featured roll in “A New Way To Pay Old Debts” with the Red Bull Theater Company.  She originated the leading roles in the new plays “Expecting” at the Players’ Theater, “What Happened To Women Here” at the Richmond Shepard Theater, and One in “The Plight of the Apothecary” at the Red Room.  She portrayed Touchstone in “As You Like It” for which she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Play at the Midtown International Theater Festival.  She has also worked substantially in classical theater.  She has portrayed Lady Macbeth in “Macbeth” (one of her favorites), Cominius in “Coriolanus”, Bottom in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, Verges in “Much Ado About Nothing”, Jacques in “As You Like It”, and she directed an all-female production of “Richard II”.  Her last role in New York, which earned her critical acclaim was her portrayal of Andromache in “Trojan Women” at the Kraine Theater.

It was in those last few years that she discovered a passion for screenwriting and decided it was time to go home.  She moved back to Los Angeles to pursue film work and writing.  She wrote, co-produced, and performed in her own original short, The Pretenders, which was an Official Selection at the Los Angeles Shorts Festival, as well as another short, dis-abuse, which wAS A FINALIST AT THE ROMA SHORTS FESTIVAL AND THE TORONTO INDIE FILMMAKERS FESTIVAL.  She has landed featured roles IN SUPER PUMPED, The Mindy Project, The Last Ship, Bad Judge, and The Thundermans.  She is currently workinG on her sixth and seventh feature screenplays, and two pilots..  she also just made her directorial debut with her script, The Class, which she has started submitting to film festivals. When Kirsta is not acting, writing, directing, or producing, she tries to carve out some time to return to her first passion, painting.  She illustrated a children’s book, Tabby Abby.