Kara started performing on stage at the age of six years old.  Her father was a technical, mechanical engineer, and her mother a musician from a family of musicians.  Kara was trained in music, ballet and fine arts as a child, and was doing professional fashion illustration for some home-town stores, and radio commericials for others while she was in highschool.  She began acting and directing in professional theatre at the age of 18 (leaving college early to start acting professionally).  Her first professional stage role was in Neil Simon's THE GOOD DOCTOR, and her first Directing job was VANITIES, both at The Bridgegate Dinner Theatre where she served one season on the Board.

At this same time she was writing and performing stand-up comedy and singing in nightclubs, in a one-woman musical comedy show called HOT SHORTS that displayed her flair for character work, and her sultry jazz voice. Audience favorite characters from this review were the niave Mona the stripper (the stripper who never took anything off), Evangeline the Evangelist, and Fiona Ravenhair, the "Faraway Romance" heroine who actually did trip up the stairs and literally ran like a gazelle.  She also wrote and composed the themesong for the show FIRST, a sexy spoof of Peggy Lee's FEVER.

Kara moved to Washington D.C. in the late 1980's where her career took hold.  Her stage debut was at the SOURCE theatre in Joe Orton's LOOT as the long-stemmed killer nurse, Fay McMahon, a role that she won over hundreds of actresses.  She became a Source regular in many productions, and their new playwright readings, playing the brazen country bar-girl wearing blaze orange in BOOM TOWN BLUES and was lauded for the unexpected pathos of her role as a visually impaired, disregarded scientist in PLANET OF THE MUTAGENS.

Kara received rave reviews from all critics in the extended run of Holly Hughes' hilarious lesbian-themed romp, THE WELL OF HORNINESS - in which she got to leap-frog onto the stage in a pink dress in heels, and have an affair with a racoon.  The next season she was called a "living Barbie Doll" as the movie star in Charles Busch's PSYCHO BEACH PARTY, which also had an extended run and received a Helen Hayes Award nomination for the production. 

In between jobs at The Source Theatre, Kara worked at many other stages, and one of the first, and most personally meaningful of all her stage roles was that of Mrs. Kendall in THE ELEPHANT MAN.

During this time she continued writing and performing her stand up comedy work, the Comedy Cafe, The Cellar, and at Garvin's Laugh-In where comic Elaine Boozler was a source of encouragement.  She also worked several seasons with the nationally recognized "Gross National Product" comedy troupe, and helped found two different improv. comedy troupes where she was active during off times from her legit. theatre gigs.

During all of this, Kara was blessed to be a darling of the critics, even when they hated the rest of the show.  She developed a mutual admiration society with Joe Brown of the Washington Post and NPR's Bob Mondello.

Kara trained at the prestigious "The Shakespeare Theatre" (formerly The Folger), where her work was received with high regard.

Through her work in THE WELL..., Kara came to the attention of Consenting Adults' Theatre, a fringe company that performed internationally, devoted to producing the works of the brilliant, irreverent writer Christi Stewart-Brown.  Kara starred as Momma in FULL OF GRACE.  Each night she remained tied to a cross with dishrags through the entire performance from even before the audience entered the theatre.  Kara became a part of the CAT family and this was a creatively fertile period of her career, working with this talented group on many productions there.  Here she directed FEMALE HITCHHIKERS, a production which incorporated dance fantasies into a straight script with oddball characters dancing out their romantic thoughts.  This production received a very rare Helen Hayes Award write-in nomination.

Internationally acclaimed painter/sculptor/performance artist John Antone asked her to be Barbie to his Ken in a series of performances called "Pillowtalk with Barbie and Ken."  This toured a variety of coffee houses and museum shows, culminating in a gala opening of "The Kitchen" gallery in New York, in one of the first coast to coast internet cafes, with a panel which included the author of "Forever Barbie" and Raquel Welch.

Kara toured with the Kennedy Center's producion of THE PEARL, performing in some of the largest and most beautiful Equity stages across the country. 

At about that time, New England Old English Sheepdog Rescue asked to, and did, publish some of her witty writings on dog training.  Kara continued working in comedy.  Always interested more in silly comedy and the oddity of life, she began to develop her character "Hermoine: guardian angel" as an exercise in bible-based "clean comedy."

In the late 1990s Kara was a recognized actress up and down the East Coast between Washington and Boston.  Still living in DC, she knew she needed to move to either New York or Los Angeles.  At that time, most New York casting being done was for musical chorus work, so she moved west in June of 1999.

That summer, HERMOINE was enthusiastically recieved at "Luna Park" restaurant/nightclub (where Ellen Degeneres often tried out new material).  The Irish angel HERMOINE was performed in many other locations, meanwhile Kara developed another character, the truly offbeat, hopeless literary romantic, DOLLY (and her caustic Mother), which she performed at many locations around L.A., including L.A.'s famous "The Comedy Store."

In 2003 Kara performed two roles in "The Marriage of Esme and Shaz."  Even many actors were so convinced that she was not the same person in both roles that they would argue about it after the show.

2004 saw her develop her production company, Dog*gerel Productions, which co-produced an indie feature film, JUDY.  (see the page on this site, or the website http://judyfilm.tripod.com)  Kara was cast in the role of Judy and during pre-production took on additional duties as co-producer. 

INFLUENCES

JUDY has had a rough-cut screening and is still in post-production.  Kara acklowledges a debt to Kim Novak, whose work informed her, and created a baseline for her performance.  Judy is a character who is passive, intellectually simple, and who has an endearing quality of lying when she is confused. Kara has received high praise as a "tour de force" portrayal of a 1950s woman selling herself out for an traditional life.    The film is also a study of isolation, and several viewers compared Kara to her acting "mentor," Greta Garbo. 

Every modern actress is influenced by our history of film stars, and Kara has great regard for all the Hitchcock women.  Most important since her pre-teens, though, she has had a special affinity for Garbo, and has recently come to revere the lesser known Italian actress Alida Valli (The Third Man, Miracle of The Bells, Walk Softly Stranger, Eyes Without a Face, Senso), who is known for a surface supernatural calm with seething emotion underneath.  Kara is known for disappearing in her role.  Her friends, after performance, have said that the person is stage is not the person they know.

Kara remains deeply interested in poetic classical works like THE SATIN SLIPPER, a french, religious, romantic melodrama by Paul Claudelle (brother of famous french sculptress Camille Claudelle), and the modern works of Nikki Silver (Pterodactyls) that explore the borders of perversion and insanity with hilarious language and great sadness.  Her loves include Ibsen, and Shaw.

Kara continues to perform, write, to publish film reviews, and is working on larger writings as well.    Aside from playing events, Kara is also playing "therapy harp" for folks in the hospital and nursing homes.  "Pear Shaped Tones" is the moniker for her music composition, voice, cello and harp (see link below).

Oct. 2007