Karen Hartman

Karen Hartman is a finalist for the 2023 international Susan Smith Blackburn prize. In 2022, her work launched VOLT at 59e59 Theaters, an unprecedented festival of three simultaneous off-Broadway premieres by a single author: New Golden Age (Primary Stages); The Lucky Star (The Directors Company); and Goldie, Max & Milk (MBL Productions). Also in 2022, Rattlesnake Kate, book by Hartman, score by Neyla Pekarek, won eight Henry Awards, including Best New Work, in its world premiere at Denver Theater Center.

Some of Hartman’s many plays include: Good Faith: Four Chats about Race and the New Haven Fire Department (Yale Repertory Theater), Roz and Ray (McKnight Fellowship, Edgerton New Play Prize, Kilroy’s List), Project Dawn (NEA Art Works Grant, NNPN Rolling World Premiere, currently in development for television), Leah’s Train (National Asian American Theater Company, Weissberger Award Finalist), Girl Under Grain (Best Drama in NY Fringe) and Gum. Her plays are published by Theater Communications Group, Dramatists Play Service, Concord Theatricals and more.

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 of Drama for five years, and lives in Brooklyn with her family. 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 and will premiere at TheatreWorks in 2023.