Work to blend singing and acting in musical theatre with Karen.  Students will expand and explore their voices as a means to express the story and intent of songs.  Play is a great way to find your voice and your unique style of expression.  If you can talk, you can sing.  In music rehearsals with Karen, students learn a core of healthy vocal explorations and worm ups.  When working on the song repertoire students learn not only music notes and rhythms, but how to truly explore what story is being told.  They discern emotions, intents, and actions, then relate them to their own lives and experiences.  

Learning how to sing with your unique voice and to truly express and tell the story of Broadway style songs is the goal.   After a workshop students should feel more comfortable singing and telling a musical story on stage.  They will know the selected songs and better know how to act the intent and goals of the character, and find a sense of pride in their own unique expressions.

Karen is a professional union actor (Actor’s Equity Association) and music teacher.  She holds her Bachelor in Music Performance from University of Wisconsin Eau Claire and her Master in Music Performance form Arkansas State University.  She also completed the Integrated Program in Musical Theatre at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in NYC.  She continues to perform professionally (most recently at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre as The Baker’s Wife and Cinderella’s Mother in Into the Woods and at Argenta Community Theatre as Countess Charlotte in A Little Night Music, and Murry’s Dinner Theatre Playhouse as Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins).  She has performed in more than 60 shows at regional theatres across the country from Sacramento Music Circus in California to Show Palace Dinner Theatre in Florida to Wheelock Family Theatre in Boston, MA.  She was nominated as best actress by the Independent Reviewers of New England for her work in the title role for The It Girl at Foothills Theatre, she won best actress in the Arkansas 48-hour Film Festival for her work in La Grande Fete, and she won Best Actress in a Musical for work as Mary in Mary Poppins.

Karen is a music teacher at Episcopal Collegiate School Lower School.  She is a founding faculty member and has been honored with the Outstanding Lower School Faculty Award.