When asked if she wanted to be an actress when she grows up, 13-year-old Katie Keenan said, “Yes, definitely.” It was said not in the way of a precocious preteen who has in her head in the clouds, but in the way of someone with solid assurance of her path in life.

“She is a professional,” said Sarah Clare Corporandy, managing director of Chautauqua Theater Company. “She is very astute … and will surprise you on stage with her intelligence. Her soul is a theater person.”

Katie, a fourth-generation Chautauquan, portrays 10-year-old Elsie in this weekend’s New Play Workshop’s Signature Staged Reading, Everything is Ours. The play’s last performance is 2:15 p.m. Saturday in Bratton Theater.