Karen Hartman’s work launches VOLT at 59e59 Theaters, an unprecedented festival of three off-Broadway premieres by a single author simultaneously: New Golden Age (Primary Stages); Goldie, Max & Milk (MBL Productions); and The Lucky Star (The Directors Company). Also in 2022, Denver Theater Center presented the world premiere musical Rattlesnake Kate, book by Hartman, score by Neyla Pekarek. Good Faith: Four Chats about Race and the New Haven Fire Department premiered at Yale Repertory Theater in 2019. Roz and Ray (McKnight Fellowship, Edgerton New Play Prize), premiered at Seattle Rep and Victory Gardens. The Lucky Star (as The Book of Joseph) premiered at Chicago Shakespeare Theater and broke box office records at Everyman Theater in Baltimore. Hartman is developing Project Dawn (People’s Light, NEA Art Works Grant, NNPN Rolling World Premiere) for Population Media Center as a television series, and another project for 20th Television. She wrote the book for Alice Bliss (music: Jenny Giering, lyrics: Adam Gwon, based on Laura Harrington's novel) which won the 2019 Weston-Ghostlight New Musical Award. Her prose has appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post. A recent Guggenheim Fellow and former Fulbright Scholar, Hodder Fellow, and New Dramatist, Hartman served as Senior Artist-in-Residence at University of Washington School for five years, and lives in Brooklyn with her family.
At MacDowell, Karen Hartman worked on a commission for People's Light and Theater Company/ Pew Charitable Trust based on the commercial sex trade in Philadelphia, inspired by a year of residency and research. She also worked on commissions for Yale Repertory Theater and Chicago Shakespeare Theater, where her play THE BOOK OF JOSEPH premiered in 2016. She lives in Brooklyn.
Portrait by Olivia Tymon
