Athlete Turned Actor: Aiken Native Discovers Her Creative Side

Christine Hauer didn't realize she had a creative side until she was an adult. Courtesy photo

Date: May 05, 2021

Christine Hauer didn’t tap into her creativity as a child and now she’s making up for lost time.

“I’d never been artistic. I’d always done sports,” said Hauer, who divides her time between New York and Los Angeles with frequent stops in her hometown of Aiken. Since 2012, her creative resume has grown with jobs such as actor, singer/songwriter, comedian, filmmaker and poet added to it.

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At Aiken High School, she played volleyball. If the school had a drama program, she didn’t know about it, and her only experience with theater prior to 2013 turned out horribly wrong and made her want to run from anything arts-related.

In college, she focused on international business and had plans to be a CEO.

But when she thinks back, Hauer realizes there were signs that she had a dramatic side.

“When I played volleyball, I was a big yeller,” she said. “I put a lot of personality into sports.”

She moved to New York after college.

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“I went to an open call for modeling, and Ford Models signed me,” said Hauer, who signed as a plus-sized model. Her photo, as well as the photos of three other models who were in the quest to be Ford+ Models appeared online at Vogue Italia, vogue.it in May 2012.

As part of her modeling experience, she took an acting class. While her stint with Ford was short-lived, the affects of the acting classes continue to pay off, opening doors she didn’t know existed.

Aiken native Christine Hauer started her own band called Cake Tower. Courtesy photo

After being part of other people’s short films, doing some stage work, and working for an event planner, Hauer has decided she wants to do more on her own.

During the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns in the cities she lived, Hauer found her creativity blossoming. She formed a band called Cake Tower and recorded an album called “I Don’t Know How To Play This.”  She has plans to transform her poetry book into a spoken word album.

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She wrote and recorded a one-woman play called “A Christine Carol,” which was supposed to have been part of the Los Angeles Fringe Festival, but COVID-19 cancelled it.

She’s also working on a second play called “Oh My Goddess,” which features the goddess Venus, alive and aging in the 1980s.

While she’s letting her creative side roam free these days, Hauer said her favorite thing to do is cultivate experiences through her event-planning business.

“Luck and Luster presents memory-making events,” she said.

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Most of the events she’s worked on have been in Los Angeles, but she’s done some in New York and hopes to do future parties in Aiken, bringing together local artists and bands.

“Aiken has such a great vibe,” she said.

Charmain Z. Brackett is the Features Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com.

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The Author

Charmain Zimmerman Brackett is a lifelong resident of Augusta. A graduate of Augusta University with a Bachelor of Arts in English, she has been a journalist for more than 30 years, writing for publications including The Augusta Chronicle, Augusta Magazine, Fort Gordon's Signal newspaper and Columbia County Magazine. She won the placed second in the Keith L. Ware Journalism competition at the Department of the Army level for an article about wounded warriors she wrote for the Fort Gordon Signal newspaper in 2008. She was the Greater Augusta Arts Council's Media Winner in 2018.

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