Directors // Karen Carpenter

Karen Carpenter is an accomplished artist of varied pursuits who has successfully produced and directed theater for over 20 years. Karen is the director of Nora Ephron & Delia Ephron’s Love Loss and What I Wore, produced by Daryl Roth at the Westside Theater in New York, and winner of the 2010 Drama Desk Award for Best Unique Theatrical Experience.  The production broke all existing box office records for advance ticket sales off Broadway and was met with unanimous critical acclaim. The show has extended many times, due to audience demand, and will celebrate its one year anniversary in October. Initially starring Tyne Daly, Samantha Bee, Katie Finneran, Natasha Lyonne, and Rosie O’Donnell, Love Loss features rotating celebrity casts. Additional companies have opened in Los Angeles and Toronto, and are planned for Chicago, London, Paris, and Australia in the coming year.

For seven seasons Ms. Carpenter was Associate Artistic Director for the Tony-winning Old Globe Theater, where she directed many award-winning works.  Among her noted productions there: the American premiere of Abi Morgan’s Splendour (Critic’s Choice, Los Angeles Times), Nilo Cruz’s Two Sisters and a Piano (Critic’s Choice, Los Angeles Times), Jeffrey Hatcher’s Smash (Patté Award and Critic’s Choice, Los Angeles Times), and Harold Pinter’s Betrayal (Craig Noel Award, Patté Award. and The Reader’s “Best Bet”).  Karen’s production of As You Like It, created for the inaugural season of the Old Globe’s newly revived Shakespeare Festival, was named The Best of 2004 by San Diego Magazine.

In addition to her directorial achievements at the Old Globe, Ms. Carpenter planned the programming each season for their three theaters, and collaborated as artistic producer on many premieres and critically recognized works by such theatrical luminaries as Mark Lamos, Jeffrey Hatcher, John Rando, Craig Wright, Dan Sullivan, Stephen Wadsworth, Henry Krieger, Tom Stoppard, Nora Ephron, Marvin Hamlisch, and Arthur Miller (in the last production of his life,) featuring such renowned actors as Ellen Burstyn, Robert Foxworth, Cherry Jones, Swoosie Kurtz, John Lithgow, and Sherie Rene Scott.

Upon leaving the Old Globe, Ms Carpenter was one of a select few nominees nationwide for the Alan Schneider award at Theater Communications Group, and the Mike Ockrent Fellowship at the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, the foremost trade associations honoring directors’ work.  In 2008, Karen was commissioned by the Inge Foundation to create an evening of William Inge's previously unpublished and unproduced short works, which she curated, and directed, entitled Inge: Complex, in conjunction with Samuel French's publication of these latter plays for the Inge Festival.  She also directed Paper Mill Playhouse’s smash hit, Steel Magnolias, featuring Kelly Bishop and Beth Fowler, and Lori Fischer’s Greener Pastures at The Public Theatre with Lois Smith, Lynn Cohen, and Roberta Maxwell that year.

Karen makes her work with writers on premiere presentations of their new works a priority, among them: Adrienne Thompson’s The Widow Ranter (an adaptation of the play by Aphra Behn), Lori Fischer’s Real Life Drama; Ann Taylor’s disposable me: a surreal fable with songs and pie, Cohen New Works Festival; Arlene Hutton’s, Parhelia, David Scott Hay’s A Sense of Color and Dominic Orlando’s All That is Solid Melts into Air, William Inge Theater Center; and Top of the Heap by Jeffrey Lodin and William Squier, for the New York Musical Festival (Director’s Choice Award).  

Ms. Carpenter was deemed a “provocateur” in the press for her concerts Riot of Spring, (which she also scripted,) featuring Roger Rees; and Hear Art, See Music, Live, featuring artists André Miripolsky and Michael Arthur, for the Indianapolis Symphony.  For several years Karen served President Clinton as his project coordinator for the inaugural and subsequent Clinton Global Initiatives. In 2007, Ms. Carpenter was Creative Producer for the launch of the United Nations/World Health Organization’s campaign to eradicate infant and maternal mortalities worldwide, Deliver Now for Women and Children.  She is presently a participant in the Friends of the U.N.’s think tank for the global campaign, The Big Push.  Yale School of Drama Faculty, 1991-96.