Karen Kohlhaas (Director)

Karen is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company, where credits include the world premiere of Annie Baker’s play Body Awareness; Harold Pinter’s The Hothouse, A Kind of Alaska, and The Collection; David Mamet’s The Water Engine and Mr. Happiness; An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein; Keith Reddin’s Frame 312; Kate Moira Ryan’s OTMA; and one act plays by Jeff Whitty, Kia Corthron, Hilary Bell, Joe Penhall, David Mamet, and many others. She has also directed at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater; Naked Angels; The Culture Project; Ensemble Studio Theatre; The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway; New Dramatists; The Alley Theatre, Houston; The Practical Theatre Company, Sydney; and Menagerie Theatre, Cambridge, UK. She directed 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, starring Judy Gold, by Kate Moira Ryan with Ms. Gold, for the Montreal Comedy Festival, New York’s Ars Nova, Off-Broadway at St. Luke’s Theatre, and national tour. Her short films include The Palace of the End and If You See Something, Say Something with Taylor Mac; The Babies got the Blues; It’s Not About Film; and Watermelon Slim; which have played in festivals in the US and internationally. Karen is a Tennessee Williams scholar focusing on the Mississippi Delta; the curator of the Tennessee Williams Rectory Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi (tennesseewilliamsrectorymuseum.com); a presenter and panelist at the Mississippi Delta and New Orleans Tennessee Williams Festivals; and is finishing her feature documentary, Tennessee Williams in the Mississippi Delta: The Love of Things Irreconcilable. She is a senior teacher at the Atlantic Acting School and teaches her own classes in acting, directing, and auditioning. She is the author of The Monologue Audition: A Practical Guide for Actors and How to Choose a Monologue for Any Audition. She guest teaches at universities around the country and in the UK.