Photo by David Leyes
Karen Hines (she/her)
Karen Hines began her theatrical career as an underground comic and emerged as the author of multiple award-winning plays, including “The Pochsy Plays trilogy,” “Crawlspace,” “Hello...Hello,” “Drama: Pilot Episode,” and “All the Little Animals I Have Eaten.” Her plays and performances have been presented across North America at venues including One Yellow Rabbit, Soulpepper, Tarragon Theatre, Boca del Lupo, Alberta Theatre Projects, Factory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Munich’s Beme and Joe’s Pub (Public Theatre).
Hines is a two-time finalist for Canada's Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, and a recent finalist for the Siminovitch Prize for Playwriting. She has directed and dramaturged the play creations of other Canadian theatre artists such as Linda Griffiths (Age of Arousal), Michelle Thrush (Inner Elder), Kunji Ikeda (Know the Rules) and Jamie Dunsdon (Bliss). She has collaborated with adult horror clowns Mump & Smoot for over 30 years, having directed all their shows to date.
Karen is an actor in Canadian and American television and film, and her own short films featuring the character “Pochsy” have screened on six continents. She is the daughter of scientists, and since 1992 her plays have included meditations on environmental peril. Climate change featured strongly in her work before the phrase was familiar or even known to the general public: she learned about it as a terrified child at the dinner table. Her performances are darkly comedic satires that aim to reflect North American consumer culture in what seems to be a perilous time. Through visceral and literary alchemy (magical realism blended with comedy and horror) she aims to make work that is irreducible and undeniable, to offer her audiences a moment’s escape from the need to escape.
Chicago born, Toronto bred, Karen currently lives in Calgary where she has been resident collaborator with One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre, and was playwright in residence at Alberta Theatre Projects.
Recent and upcoming: Hines has recently performed her immersive real estate horror “Crawlspace” in homes and micro theatres across Canada, and the plays is now available as a podcast on CBC’s PlayMe. Karen recently premiered her newest, “Pochsy IV” (directed by Mike Kennard and clunography by John Turner) at the 2023 High Performance Rodeo and will tour this coming year. Her “All the Little Animals I Have Eaten” has recently premiered in its French translation in Montreal, and “Crawlspace” will premiere in French this spring at Toronto’s TFT.