Sikeston native Hannah Matthews Moore graduated from Southeast Missouri State University with a degree in musical theater and the goal of becoming a leading lady on Broadway in the Big Apple. Life had a different plan for her.

“My dream to live in New York City had to be fueled by money and a job,” she said. “So, I decided to look at the skills I had already and something I enjoyed, which was working in hair and makeup backstage in the shows.”

Having worked under some of the stars of the hairdressing world and with clientele including Broadway stars, Moore will return home to Sikeston and work at the room. Hair Design Studio on Cape Girardeau’s Broadway.

She will start offering all types of hair services Thursday, Aug. 15, working at the room. for seven straight weeks before returning to New York to aid her clients there for one week. This schedule of seven week in Cape Girardeau, one week in New York will be her norm.

“Everything that you can think of, I can do. I can make it lighter, I can make it darker. I can make it shorter. I can even make it look longer. I can style it any way,” Moore said. “… The focus of my career is being able to serve anyone with hair and a goal for their hair.”

Moore began her career by attending Paul Mitchell The School St. Louis, a cosmetology school, directly after graduating from SEMO. Within a year, she received her hairdressing license and she headed to New York.

In order to get into a hair and makeup union to work backstage on Broadway between auditions, she would first need experience in a salon. Moore wanted to complete a commissioned salon apprenticeship because that would give her the best education in the quickest amount of time. She found what she was looking for at Dop Dop Salon in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood.

“I had to bring 200 live models in just to pass these tests in order to get my place behind the chair … (and) it was a special time in my career where I feel like I got to jump ahead of people that I went to school with and get a lot of experience really early,” Moore said. “Hairdressing is all about learning from mistakes, and you can either learn from them on your own or you can learn from other people’s mistakes. By learning from other people’s mistakes I got to jump ahead and be many steps forward in my career.”

During her Dop Dop education, Moore assisted hairdressers with coloring, styling and bringing clients the latest industry trends.

“I spent three years shampooing and assisting some of the best hairdressers in the world,” she said. “… At one point, I want to say it had eight educators working there employed by huge brands like L’Oreal Professional, Redken, Kerastase, Shu Uemura, Baxter (of California).”

Moore said her mother even nicknamed her "Dr. Hair" because she felt Moore had received a doctorate in hairdressing with such rigorous apprenticeship work.

Following in the footsteps of Dop Dop’s founder Jo Blackwell-Preston, Moore traveled in an educational role teaching other hairdressers across the country about what she had learned at the studio. She traveled as far as New Hampshire, California and Florida, and closer to home in Iowa, Illinois and Tennessee.

“I don't do much editorial work … I lean more toward the educational side,” Moore said. “I really enjoy helping other people like me have beautiful careers and that begins with being confident in the hair color and products you’re using.”

Her travels eventually brought her back to Southeast Missouri. During the coronavirus pandemic, Moore moved back to Sikeston to be with her father. She visited Kanaan Rhodes Steiner, the room.’s owner, to get hair supplies and agreed to help out to alleviate a busy schedule. She worked there for five weeks in the spring of 2020, then in a reverse of her upcoming schedule returned from New York every eight weeks to sustain her Missouri clientele.

Moore and Steiner had met at a Redken Artist training seminar in Nashville in 2019. Moore described the room.’s owner as a good friend and a talented hairdresser.

“I have worked with many people in this industry … and Kanaan Steiner is one of the best bosses I have ever had and I am thrilled to have the room. as my new hair home,” she said.

625 Broadway in Cape Girardeau might be far from Times Square, but in a way Moore is still living out her Broadway dreams.

“I actually never, ever auditioned in the city,” she said. “I decided I wanted to be a hairdresser forever and it could provide a really wonderful life as long as I played my cards right, and I think I did.”

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