The Otago women's sprint champion started at the Fortune a day after returning from the Oceania area championships in Cairns this month with a 100m gold medal and 200m bronze medal in her luggage.
The 27-year-old believes her sporting prowess will give her a head start in her new role.
"There are a lot of similarities. You're always having to think outside the square in sports, like with marketing," she said yesterday.
"Athletics is a solo sport, but what makes you successful is everybody else in the team helping you get to the finish line, just like in theatre. You also get butterflies every time you get in the blocks, like actors do before a play." Ms Dyke attended Dunstan High School in Alexandra, where her parents still live, and moved to Dunedin in 2004 to study at the University of Otago, graduating with a double degree in design studies and art history in 2007.
"Coming from a small town, you got a lot of opportunities. You got to do everything."
She competed at representative level in netball, rowing, swimming and figure skating and was second in New Zealand in school certificate art, with 97%.
"I was one of those people some people hated, because I was good at everything. But you have to focus on one thing.
"I knew I had the talent for athletics at high school, because I would win Otago-Southland events. But, at national level, a couple of people started beating me and I didn't like that.
"I like to be an achiever and push myself and my goals. I'm always reassessing my goals.
"It boils down to passion. I want to be a professional athlete and I've got another seven or eight years to achieve that. I'll peak between 30 and 34."
Ms Dyke is in the New Zealand development team for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, training at the High Performance Sport New Zealand centre at Forsyth Barr Stadium for an hour and a-half every day after work.
Except for Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays - when she has four-hour sessions.
"I want to get my 100m down to 11.8sec this year and 11.5sec for Glasgow. That's my goal and I'll get it." However, there are sacrifices, such as putting her social life on the backburner.
"It is hard. But that's when I take a step back and look at the overall picture and see where I want to go. I dream of standing on a dais with an Olympic gold medal listening to the national anthem."
In her spare time, she trains juniors at the Taieri Athletics Club and is the Dunedin manager for Ican modelling and casting agency.
"There's heaps of other stuff I'd like to do, if I could jam it into my day. I want to really push my boundaries."
In the meantime, she is running the publicity for the Fortune's remaining 2012 productions - Heroes (August 25 to September 15) and Calendar Girls (November 10 to December 8).
