Karen Sunde

Biography

An actor turned writer, Karen performed many leading roles Off-Broadway, and was Associate Director of CSC Repertory. Her plays have been performed Off-Broadway, in regional theatres, on a USA tour, and in eleven countries and seven languages.

Sunde’s first screenplay, UNDERCOVER PATRIOT was a finalist at Sundance. She wrote PARALLEL LOVES for Terra Bella Entertainment, Los Angeles; BOULE DE SUIF (adapt Maupassant) for Dace Direction, London; DREAM HOUSE for Passport Films, NYC; THE FASTEST WOMAN ALIVE for Howard S Shulman Productions, NYC; THE SECRET SHIP; FINAL QUEST: THE MOUNTAIN OF THE GODS; TRIPPING TAMMY; CHICKS GOTTA SWIM; LOVE HITS EARTH (& Other Disasters); NEXT!; adaptations of HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM, screenplay an "Official Selection" at Oaxaca FilmFest, www.AbrahamFilm.org, and IN A KINGDOM BY THE SEA, won the Gold Prize at Hollywood Screenplay Contest.

Published plays: DARK LADY, produced Abbey Theatre, Ireland, Aalborg State Theatre, Denmark, optioned for film; BALLOON, won three VILLAGER awards Off-Broadway, nominated Best Play by Outer Critics Circle, aired Radio France; HAITI: A DREAM in FACING FORWARD, produced Seven Stages, Atlanta, aired WNYC, WHYY, NPR; TO MOSCOW, premiered Ankara National Theatre, Turkey, Chain Lightning, New York; OH WILD WEST WIND in ROWING TO AMERICA, produced Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey (PTNJ). PLAYS BY KAREN SUNDE includes TRUTH TAKES A HOLIDAY, read La MaMa, New York City (NYC); IN A KINGDOM BY THE SEA produced PTNJ, HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM, produced PTNJ, Praxis Theatre Project, NYC, premiered at The Unicorn, Kansas City. ANTON, HIMSELF for Actors Theatre of Louisville, also played The Moscow Art Theatre, the Yalta Festival in Russia, Peoples Light and Theatre, NYU in New York. THE FASTEST WOMAN ALIVE produced Luna Stage, NJ, Praxis, NYC, Edinburgh Festival (2010); KABUKI OTHELLO, produced People's Light and Theatre Company and Annenberg Center, Philadelphia; Wisdom Bridge, Chicago; KABUKI LADY MACBETH produced Chicago Shakespeare Theater, cited for five JEFF Awards, including "Best New Work," Best Production," "Best Direction:" IN A KINGDOM BY THE SEA. Scenes from TO MOSCOW; ANTON, HIMSELF; MASHA, TOO; and ABRAHAM appear in SCENES & MONOLOGS FROM THE BEST NEW PLAYS.

Among 23 plays--for Actors Theatre of Louisville; People's Light and Theatre; The Acting Company, NYC, Sunde wrote KABUKI MACBETH, KABUKI KING RICHARD and ACHILLES, which toured Hungary, Cyprus, and Japan. She co-wrote musical QUASIMODO,(a musical) premiered Byrdcliffe Festival, Woodstock, NY, produced Lahti City Theatre, Finland. For Cheltenham Center, Philadelphia, she wrote LA PUCELLE (ME & JOAN) and DADDY'S GONE A-HUNTING (TRACKING BLOOD WHITE). In NYC: for Chain Lightning, WHEN REAL LIFE BEGINS, for The Working Theatre, 2020 SEXCARE in FREE MARKET; for Tisch School, NYU, Table and Chair Handmade Theatre, PLEASE GOD, NO WEDDING OR SHOOTING AT THE END! Opera THE SPA with composer Michael Dilthey. also at https://www.dramaticpublishing.com/authors/profile/view/url/karen-sunde

Sunde’s won a McKnight Fellowship, an NDEA Fellowship, the Aide de la Creation award in France, the Bob Hope Award, Gold Prize in Hollywood Screenplay Contest, lives in New York City, served on the theatre panel of New Jersey Council on the Arts, and the new plays panel of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, was faculty at New Hampshire Institute of Art's Writing for Stage & Screen MFA program, La MaMa ETC (New York)'s nominee for the Laura Pels/​PEN award, consultant for musical DAMASCUS SQUARE.

Where to find Karen Sunde online

Books

Anton, Himself: First & Last
Price: Free! Words: 13,410. Language: English. Published: March 29, 2018 . Categories: Plays » Russian & Former Soviet Union, Plays » Women Authors
Chekhov opens his Plays. “It takes chutzpah to write a play in the voice of that master of indirection and self-absorption, Anton Chekhov. That, however, is what Karen Sunde has done. We'd owe Sunde grudging admiration merely for the attempt, but in fact she has succeeded in illuminating Chekhov at a critical juncture of his life.” Clifford Ridley, Philadelphia Inquirer
Radio Plays
Price: Free! Words: 25,920. Language: English. Published: May 20, 2012 . Categories: Plays » American / African American, Plays » Women Authors
(5.00 from 1 review)
3 Radio Plays 3 Voodoo to Paradise: tropical night, mysterious wooden boat-load casting off for better future. The Sound of Sand: Blind boy’s mighty dangerous venture from sand-castle beach onto the sea. How His Bride Came To Abraham: Enemies trapped in no-man’s land make it paradise. An NPR, WNYC broadcast; a Bob Hope Award winner; a radio-adaptation of oft-produced, twice-published peace play.
Kabuki-West
Price: Free! Words: 24,320. Language: English. Published: February 15, 2012 . Categories: Plays » Women Authors, Plays » American / African American
Kabuki plays “dazzling” “haiku-like” Chicago Sun-Times “best of two worlds, fascinating” Oakland Tribune “resounds with Kabuki’s passion, fascination...in Sunde's adaptation, Zen philosophy is engrained into story, not imposed” L.A.Daily News “Essence of passion. Sunde's play compresses Homeric epic, is lucid and direct, makes you see and hear with awakened eyes and ears." Philadelphia Inquirer
Me & Joan (of Arc)
Price: Free! Words: 17,620. Language: English. Published: January 9, 2012 . Categories: Fiction » Plays & Screenplays » American, Fiction » Christian » Historical
Suicidal stand-up comic Lili meets Joan of Arc; and, playing her side-kick, makes war on "the Fathers of the Church" exploring sexuality, love, guilt, faith, and the place of women. Though almost Banned In Philadelphia, a Catholic priest cheered: “a very authentic interpretation of St. Joan of Arc…renders more clearly than [Shaw or Anouilh] her religious faith…relates Joan to modern feminism.
America Finding Her Way
Price: Free! Words: 53,820. Language: English. Published: January 9, 2012 . Categories: Fiction » Plays & Screenplays » American, Fiction » Cultural & ethnic themes » Cultural interest, general
Sweet Land of Fire: Rebellion. New York, 1970. the 24 hours before the “Weatherman house” on 11th street explodes. Native Land: Rejuvenation. The rebirth of a family to serve their nation by following their delinquent child’s dreams. Tracking Blood White: American magic: A dying red-neck town’s struggle with its Native American neighbors and the killer bear that haunts the mountain they share
Chekhovs At Home
Price: Free! Words: 27,310. Language: English. Published: January 9, 2012 . Categories: Fiction » Plays & Screenplays » Russian, Plays » Women Authors
Please God, No Wedding Or Shooting At The End!- Chekhov strives to write The Seagull, while characters from it, his own life, and Hamlet swim in his head. Anton, Himself - Writing a love story after The Seagull flops, Chekhov darts between passion, family, and disaster. Masha, Too - Irrepressibly seized by love, Chekhov's sister wrestles with whether to leave her brother's exciting life to marry
When Real Life Begins
Price: Free! Words: 7,590. Language: English. Published: January 2, 2012 . Categories: Nonfiction » Biography » Personal memoir
A vibrant woman tells how, as her actor husband fights for his life, the closer he gets to death, the more powerful his acting grows...while in this turmoil, she discovers her passion to produce theatre. True play of Claire Higgins and Kricker James. “Tour de force. Thrilling.” PLAYS INTERNATNL “Unforgettable. You wish it would stop, but know you’d feel robbed if it did.” NEW YORK TIMES
Liberty
Price: Free! Words: 19,600. Language: English. Published: December 27, 2011 . Categories: Nonfiction » History » War
Presents “the making of a hero least likely,” when George Washington, in the final months of 1776, leads the bedraggled Continental Army. They are chased out of New York, down New Jersey, vomited half-naked on the Pennsylvania bank of the Delaware, then finally turn, charge...and become America. A full-length play first performed in New York, 1978.

Karen Sunde's tag cloud

1960s radicals    achilles    acting    acting technique    american revolution    antiwar play    anton chekhov    archangel michael    battle of trenton    bear hunting    biographical play    biography    black panthers    blind child drama    boat people    bomb building    brigadier general william alexander lord stirling    caregiver    caregiver burnout    case study    catholic patriarchy    chekhov    cheltenham center    civil rights    colonel johann rahl    colonel john glover    colonel joseph reed    continental army    crossing the delaware    ensemble plays    experimental theater    fred hampton    general charles lee    george washington    haitian history    haitian refugees    hamlet    healer    homelessness    hospice    in the shadow of the glen    isaac levitan    israeli palestinian conflict    joan of arc    la pucelle    lika mitzinova    macbeth    maria pavlovna chekhova    monologues    monologues for women    moscow art theatre    mysticism    national institutes of health    native american    new york terrorism    nih    olga knipper    onewoman plays    plays    plays about chekhov    plays about theatre    plays by women    playwrighting    producer    radio play    redneck town    reservation    richard iii    sacred mountain    saint catherine    saint margaret    sccript    shaman    shiva    standup comic    stanislavsky    synge    the cherry orchard    the iliad    the sea gull    the seagull    theater company    theater producer    theatre    thetis    transcendance    urban renewal    viet nam protesters    voodoo    weathermen