My Name is Karen

About the Reading

Karen Hines is an award-winning, genre-defining creative. As a writer, director and cult-comedian, she is the long time director of High Performance Rodeo favourites, Mump & Smoot.

Also known for her short films featuring the character Pochsy, Karen has traveled the globe to international critical acclaim.

My Name Is Karen is a work-in-progress and a satirical examination of the “Karen meme”.

Cast & Crew

Karen Hines – Creator and Performer
Blake Brooker – Dramaturgy
Peter Moller – Images

Produced by:

June Fukumura and Paige Louter

Karen Hines’ high performance satires have won multiple production and literary awards and citations including twice being finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award and shortlisted for the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre She is the author of The Pochsy Plays, All the Little Animals I Have Eaten, Drama and Crawlspace among others – all published by Coach House Books. She is a Dora Award-winning performer and director (Pochsy, Mump & Smoot) and her short films featuring the character ‘Pochsy’ have screened on five continents. Combining such disparate elements as magical realism, pink brand feminism, performance clown and horror, Hines’ works have won her a reputation as "One of the gems of Canadian theatre" (Toronto Star). Her true life real estate horror Crawlspace (Boca del Lupo, cross-Canada tour) is currently streaming on CBC Radio and her Pochsy IV recently closed to sold-out houses at Toronto’s VideoCabaret. Hines is a Gemini nominee and for three years played “Karen” in the Emmy Award-winning Newsroom (CBC/PBS)

Paige Louter (she/they) is a queer theatre creator and producer based in so-called Vancouver. She holds an MA in Drama and Theatre from the University of Galway, and works as a performer, writer, outside eye, and intimacy director. Paige produced The Café (ITSAZOO/Aphotic) and Sunrise Betties (ITSAZOO), produced/assistant directed Meeting (ITSAZOO/Pacific), co-produced and performed in The Wolves (With a Spoon/Rumble; Jessie Nomination: Outstanding Production) and performed in The Lonesome West (Cave Canem), Twelfth Night (Tottering Biped) and Coarse: The Brontes (Edinburgh Fringe). Year-round, they work as ITSAZOO’s Co-Artistic Producer and Currently Arts’ Operations Manager. Upcoming: solo shows God Joke Play and Nod.

June Fukumura is a multidisciplinary, nisei (second-generation) Japanese-Canadian theatre artist living on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, colonially known as Vancouver. She is the Co-Artistic Director of Popcorn Galaxies, an experimental theatre company dedicated to re-enchanting the everyday through unconventional, site-responsive and site-specific new works. Since 2013, Popcorn Galaxies has created over fourteen productions and has been presented in Vancouver, Richmond, Edmonton, Whitehorse, and Dartmouth. Her personal artistic practice includes: acting for theatre/film/tv/voice over, clowning/bouffon, puppeteering, directing, dramaturgy, devising, and writing. She has worked with a number of theatre companies across Canada including The Stratford Festival, Theatre Calgary, Arts Club Theatre, Theatre Replacement, Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, Playwrights Theatre Centre, The Chop Theatre, Little Onion Puppet Co., The Biting School, and Hong Kong Exile. As a dyslexic artist, she also works as a speaker, advocate, and educator. She is passionate about creating diverse, inclusive, and safer spaces for all neurodiverse and neurodivergent artists. June holds a BFA in Theatre Performance and a Certificate in Sustainable Community Development from Simon Fraser University.

Supported by:

My Name is Karen is made possible with financial support of the Playwrights Guild of Canada.