Biography
Karen Vaccaro has been a mainstay in Chicago theatre working as a director and actress since 1982 and has won 3 Joseph Jefferson Awards for her work. Karen served as Artistic Director of Spirit Expressing Theatre 2000-2002. Training actors since 1985, Karen created professional acting programs for LaBarraca ’90, Spirit Expressing, and Huron Theatres.
- She performed in the US Premiere of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago and On Broadway at the Neil Simon Theatre.
- She created the role of Helen in Sin at the Goodman Theatre and also performed the role Off Broadway at Second Stage.
- Ms. Vaccaro directed In The Continuum for the University of Illinois at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts this past fall.
- She directed the critically acclaimed production of Federico Garcia Lorca’s The Sleep Walker’s Ballad for LaBarraca ’90 Theatre which received a Best of the Fest award at the Bailiwick Director’s Festival
Directing credits
- The Mother
- A Man For All Seasons
- If Children Still Remember
- You Are Not Alone at Spirit Expressing Performance Company
- Doloras at Rivendell Theatre
- Claudia Allen’s Movie Queens for The Writer’s Block at Pegasus Theatre
Chicago acting credits
- Mistress Overdone in Measure For Measure at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre
- Margaret in Richard III at The Blue Rider
- The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet at Steppenwolf Theatre
- The Duchess of York
- Gloucester in Richard II at Actor’s Revolution,
- Serafina in The Rose Tattoo
- Lucy Brown in Three Penny Opera at Bailiwick Repertory
- Miss Margarita in Miss Margarita’s Way for KV Productions
- A History of the American Film at Huron Theatre
- Lend Me A Tenor at the Royal George Theatre.
Televisions credits
- Early Edition, Missing Persons
- Prison Break
Film credits
- U.S. Marshals
- Stir Of Echoes
- Three Days
- I Do
- The Opera Lover (Best Film - 1998 - Newport Film festival)
- Unconditional Love
- The Lake House.