Karen Sabo

I'm a director, teacher, producer, and actor. Through my work, I explore how theatre can challenge participants, both theatre-makers and audiences, to think critically and increase empathy for others, therefore becoming more responsible members of our democracy.  
 
I've been a member of three different resident acting companies, including Barter Theater in Virginia where I was also a resident director, dialect coach, and eventually, Director of Education. My diverse acting training was with Larry Silverberg's Meisner-based True Acting school, the American Conservatory Theatre, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Saratoga International Theatre Institute, and Shakespeare and Company. My B.A. in liberal arts is from Hampshire College, where I studied government-media relations, and I earned an M.A. in liberal arts from East Tennessee State University, studying stereotyping of Appalachians in the media. I have an MFA in Directing at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. I was in the directing observership program with Stage Directors and Choreographers, and was an observer for a production of Indecent at GableStage in Florida. I have extensive experience teaching at theatres and in higher education, including in pre-professional programs such as at Baldwin-Wallace University and Emory & Henry College. I'm a 26-year member of Actors' Equity Association, belong to SDC, and also VASTA (Voice and Speech Trainers Association), the Broadway Green Alliance, and Creative Placemaking Communities. 

A long-time practitioner of verbatim theatre, I created a course at Appalachian State University in which students gathered overheard conversations from the local bus system, and performed a play using the conversations as a script. I've recently created a script called How We Got Here, about the history of civil rights protest in North Carolina, using transcripts from the Southern Oral History Database. I'm an acting coach who has used the gifts of acting to help not only pre-professionals, but also librarians, businesspeople, and incarcerated youth.  

I'm currently an artist-in-residence in the wonderful undergraduate theatre program at Missouri State University, teaching acting, voice, and movement to BFA actors and musical theatre artists, and leading classes in directing and script analysis as well.