NEO BOUFFON INSTRUCTOR
Karen is an award-winning writer, director and performer and the artistic director of Keep Frozen: Pochsy Productions, which develops Hines’ dark comedies for stage and screen. She is the author of Drama: Pilot Episode, Citizen Pochsy, Hello…Hello (A Romantic Satire), Oh, baby and Pochsy’s Lips as well as several short plays and the Neo-Cabaret Pochsy Unplugged, which have been presented across North America and in Germany at venues such as Alberta Theatre Projects, Tarragon Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Joe’s Pub (Public Theatre, NYC), Word Stage, Factory Theatre, Magnetic North, One Yellow Rabbit and Beme Theatre in Munich.
Hines is a two-time finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama for her trilogy of Pochsy Plays and for Drama: Pilot Episode. Other awards and citations for her productions include a dozen Dora Mavor Moore nominations, the Betty Mitchell Award for New Play, two Alberta Writers Guild Awards, and twice finalist for the Chalmers Award for Playwriting (Hello…Hello, Oh, baby). Karen is also a Dora Award-winning director and performer.
Karen is a Second City alumna and long-time collaborator with fellow alums Sandra Balcovske and composer Greg Morrison. Their prize-winning short films, featuring the character Pochsy, have screened at festivals around the globe. At Second City, Karen also met horror clown duo Mump & Smoot and has directed all their shows to date from Canadian Fringe Festivals to Yale Repertory, Off Broadway, across America and overseas. She was director and dramaturge of the inaugural production of Linda Griffiths’ Age of Arousal (Alberta Theatre Projects), and she will be directing Linda’s upcoming production, HeavenAbove/HeavenBelow (Theatre Passe Muraille).
Karen has performed in film, television and onstage and co-starred in Ken Finkleman’s Emmy Award-winning (Canadian) satire The Newsroom, as well as his Foreign Objects and Married Life for which she was nominated for Gemini and CableACE Awards.She has written for magazines, anthologies and literary journals and has won Western and National Magazine Awards. She has spoken at universities and literary festivals and teaches also in conservatory settings. All of her plays are published by Coach House Books.
Karen has been playwright in residence at Tarragon Theatre and at Alberta Theatre Projects. She was born in Chicago, raised in Toronto and now lives in Calgary, where she is writing a feature film, Crawl Space, and a new play, ILK.
For more information visit: www.pochsy.org