Theater Worker

Notable productions ~ Sample Reviews  ~ Playscript ~ TESTIMONIALS

Karen Bovard has been making theater for more than 40 years, and has directed more than 70 productions, as well as working occasionally as costumer or set designer.  She reviewed theater for 15 years in the Hartford, CT area, publishing in weekly outlets as well as scholarly journals, and continues to write online reviews in the Twin Cities. An avid theater goer, she's seen professional productions of all of Shakespeare's plays, completing the canon from the audience POV.  She earned a Ph.D. in Theater & Women's Studies, served as Artistic Director for a youth theater company, and directed an arts diploma program for 20 years at Watkinson School in Hartford, CT. 

NOTABLE PRODUCTIONS

(Director and Designer)

A Midsummer night's Dream

The lovers escape into a Seussian wilderness of desire made of pool noodles, from the drab order of Athens, Ohio, returning to the city and matrimony once awakened to magic and a deeper sense of their selves.  

Machinal

Five rolling set units with walls made of 4" elastic were reconfigured to create multiple locations in this great play, based on an infamous 1927 murder trial. 

The primary English class

Performed in 8 languages--one per actor--this vicious parody of 'business English' classes skewers both bad teaching and xenophobia. Our production used Russian, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Bosnian, Khmer (Cambodian), and English. 

METAMORPHOSIS

Adapted from Ovid, this production is set in and around a pool of transformative water.  Here, Hunger confronts a glutton. 

THE GOOD WOMAN OF SETZUAN

Brecht's classic asks the question "Is it possible to be good in an evil world?"  As the parable unfurls, the gods come in for scrutiny, as do the roles we adopt for survival's sake. 

Who will carry the Word? 

This text features an all-female cast.  Set entirely within the women's death camp at Auschwitz, it was written by a survivor who was a theater worker before joining the French Resistance. 

anon(ymous)

A contemporary adaptation of THE ODYSSEY, this episodic text re-imagines the central voyager as a modern-day refugee. 

Sample  Reviews

  • Karen reviews professional theater for the onllne site Broadwayworld.com. Here's a link to her page on that site.

  • From 2003 - 2013 she was the theater critic for The Hartford Advocate, a weekly print publication, and covered more than 100 shows. That publication is now defunct.

  • See also scholarly reviews in Theater Journal (e.g., May 2001, Dec. 2002, Dec. 2004).

  • Of interest may also be chapters about Sophocles' ANTIGONE and Miller's THE CRUCIBLE in Women in Literature: Reading through the Lens of Gender, ed. Jerilyn Fisher & Ellen Silber, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003.