Karen Berman

Karen Berman
Immediate Past President 

Karen Berman served as President of ATHE from August 2004 to July 2007 and served as ATHE’s Vice President for Advocacy from August 2001 to August 2003. She was Co-Chair and Chair of the Advocacy Watch Subcommittee from 1998 to 2001, in which she developed the first Governing Council approved Guidelines for Advocacy Watch. She is a graduate of the first class of the ATHE Leadership Institute. She has been a coordinator and panelist on numerous conference sessions including “Exemplars of Theatre Education Training Programs” and “Advocacy and Activism on the Capitol and Campus Steps.” Karen is co-founder and Artistic Director of a theatre company, Washington Women in Theatre, which has produced at the Warehouse Theatre, Millennium Stage of the Kennedy Center, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Karen was Director of SourceCast where she cast some 400 Washington area actors in commercials, industrials and films. She served as Associate Producer at Source Theatre for over six years. Karen also collaborated with David Young on the book How to Direct a Musical: Broadway Your Way published by Routledge.

Karen has directed over 70 productions for venues ranging from the Smithsonian to off-Broadway. Her off-Broadway credits include, at the American Theatre of Actors, Ziggy and Ballet Russes, which starred Twyla Tharp Company member Petter Jacobsson as Nijinsky. At Source Theatre, in addition to receiving the "Most Valuable Player Award," she directed numerous plays, including Cynthia Heimel's A Girl's Guide to Chaos, Shamanism in New Jersey, Last Stand of the Polish Sharpshooters, and Hot Rod Aliens from Hell. Karen directed Tony Kushner's new adaptation of Ansky's A Dybbuk and Rootabaga Country, a new adaptation of Carl Sandburg's "Rootabaga Stories.” Other plays she has directed include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, David Mamet's Revenge of the Space Pandas, This is the Ril Speaking, The Country Wife, Sam Shepard's Chicago, Present Laughter, her co-adaptation of Russell Baker's Growing Up, and the premiere of the recently published Polka Dot Conspiracy at Metro Stage. She has assisted in the development of over 30 new plays. Karen has also served as Dramaturg on productions at Theatre J and Source Theater Company.

Karen holds a B.A. in Theater from George Washington University and an M.F.A. in Directing from Catholic University of America. Karen has also directed numerous university theatre productions, including Woyzeck, Six Characters in Search of an Author, and Ah! Wilderness at Catholic University, The Glass Menagerie at American University, and The Balcony and Dr. Korczak and the Children at Georgetown University. She teaches theater at Georgetown University where she has served as Artistic Advisor to the Student Theater Groups for 14 years and mentored 150 mainstage student-directed projects. Her teaching areas of focus include acting, Lessac voice-movement, directing, and improvisation for social change. She received a Dean’s Award for Distinguished Service.