Karen Hines

Karen Hines is a Canadian actor, writer and director. She is the artistic director and producer of "Keep Frozen: Pochsy Productions." Born in Chicago, raised in Toronto, she now lives in Calgary where she was playwright in Residence at Alberta Theatre Projects from 2009 to 2012, has been a performer and collaborator with One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre, a National Magazine Award-winning contributor to Swerve magazine, and has created short films featuring the character Pochsy, which have screened internationally.

Hines has written seven full-length plays, and many short plays. Her longer published works include Drama: Pilot Episode, Hello...Hello (A Romantic Satire), and The Pochsy Plays, a trilogy of dark comedies, which have been Hines's plays have toured internationally and have won numerous awards and nominations. The Pochsy Plays were short-listed for the 2004 Governor General's Awards for Drama, and Drama: Pilot Episode was also short-listed for the GG in 2012.

Hines has appeared extensively in film and television, including many of Ken Finkleman's satires such as The Newsroom, directing all their productions from their early Fringe days to productions Off-Broadway, at the Yale Repertory Theatre and at the La Jolla Playhouse. She has directed and collaborated on the work of other Canadian artists such as Darren O'Donnell (Over) and Linda Griffiths (Age of Arousal). She is an associate of One Yellow Rabbit where she performed Citizen Pochsy and directed Mump and Smoot in the High Performance Rodeo as early as 1989.

Hines is a Second City alumna (Toronto), but her comedy has a darker component, which she honed through her work with Philippe Gaulier. She is considered a Canadian authority on Bouffon. Hines was also a student of Richard Pochinko.