Talk:Karen Allen

1981 East of Eden miniseries

Karen Allen's role in the ABC 1981 East of Eden miniseries isn't listed, nor does Wikipedia have a page on it. Any takers? Randy Kryn 11:53 7 April, 2015 (UTC)

Mention of Allen's stage and television work in the lede

An editor has reverted my work in the lede, calling it "POV" in the edit summary. I assume this to mean the reverting party feels I have some connection to Allen, which is not the case. I suggest that Allen's stage and television work, referred to extensively in the article, merits mention in the lede, which in any case currently consists of a list of her movie career, and is a poor summary of the article. The revert did catch some erroneous date changes, but my improvement to the lede should not be lumped in with vandalism. I propose restoring my work to the lede, and further expansion. Happy to discuss. Jusdafax 17:54, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Proposed Edits

Hello, I represent Ms. Karen Allen and she would like to have her page revamped to reflect a more accurate and well written statement of facts. Many thanks.

Karen (Jane) Allen is an award winning Actress and Director and has starred in over 45 feature films. She is known for her roles as Katy, “the voice of reason” in John Landis’ Animal House (1978), in Rob Cohen’s A Small Circle of Friends (1979), Phil Kaufman’s The Wanderers (1979), and as Marion Ravenwood, the hard drinking owner of the Raven Bar in Raider’s of the Lost Ark (1981) opposite Harrison Ford directed by Steven Spielberg. Having started out in the theatre in Washington, DC and NYC, she has divided her life between working in film and NY theatre projects as both an actor and director. Other films have included Shoot the Moon (1982) Cruising (1980) Starman (1984) Until September (1985) The Glass Menagerie (1987) Scrooged (1988) Animal Behavior (1989) The Challenger (1990) Sweet Talker (1991), Malcolm X (1992), The Sandlot (1992), King of the Hill (1993), The Ghost in the Machine (1993), All the Winters That Have Been (1997), Falling Sky (1998), The Basket (1999) The Perfect Storm (2000), In the Bedroom (2001), World Traveler (2001), Poster Boy (2004), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) White Irish Drinkers (2010), Bad Hurt (2014) and Year By the Sea (2016) based on the best selling memoir of Joan Anderson. In 2016 she directed her first film A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud based on a short story by Carson McCullers. It will have it’s World Premiere at the Manchester Film Festival in Manchester, England in March of 2017.

Early Life

Allen was born in Carrollton, Illinois on October 5, 1951. She is the middle child of three sisters, Kathleen and Cyndy. Her father, Carroll Thompson Allen joined the FBI the year she was born and the family moved frequently during her younger years but eventually settled in Washington, DC when she was 10. Her mother, Patricia, was an elementary school teacher. Karen graduated from DuVal High School in Lanham, MD in 1969 with an interest in design and in writing.

Career

Karen moved to NYC when she was 17 to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology and study textile and clothing design. In 1972 she left the US to live in Jamaica in the West Indies and then traveled by car from Mexico to southern Peru over the period of a year. She returned to the US in late 1973 and was invited by a friend to see the celebrated Polish Theatre Laboratory perform under the direction of Jerzy Grotowski. Deeply moved by what she saw, she began to study acting with a long time student of Grotowski’s in Washington DC and became a member of the company, the Washington Theatre Laboratory where she remained until 1976. She also was the Co-Director (with theatre artist, Paul Iorio) of the Washington Project for the Arts: they brought experimental theatre companies from around the world to perform at the WPA space in downtown Wash. DC.

In 1976 Karen moved to NYC to pursue work as an actor in the theatre. Not long after arriving, while she was studying at the Lee Strasberg Institute, she saw a card on a bulletin board announcing an audition for the film Animal House. She was cast as Katy, the voice of reason” and the film opened to such success a year later that she began to receive numerous film offers. She took on the role of the guitar toting Nina, in Phil Kaufman’s, The Wanderers, did a cameo in Woody Allen’s film Manhattan, was cast in her first leading role by Rob Cohen in A Small Circle of Friends, and met with Steven Spielberg to play the role of Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark. She made two other films Cruising with Al Pacino, directed by William Freidkin and Shoot the Moon, with Albert Finney and Diane Keaton, directed by Alan Parker for taking a break to return to the theatre.

At the Berkshire Theatre Festival she was cast as Gittel in Two for the Seesaw” by William Gibson. He was writing a new play, The Monday After the Miracle, and asked her to play the role of Helen Keller in this continuation of The Miracle Worker. Arthur Penn directed. He would have a great influence on Karen’s later work as a director. They worked on the play for almost 2 years as it went from the Actor’s Studio to the Spoleto Festival to the Kennedy Center to Broadway. When it left Broadway, Karen joined the cast of William Mastrisimone’s play, Extremities, that was playing Off-Broadway.

Karen’s work in the theatre has included Odets’, The Country Girl, Tennessee Williams’, The Glass Menagerie with Joanne Woodward, Gibson’s, The Miracle Worker, Shakespeare’s, As You Like It, Andrew Bovell’s, Speaking in Tongues, Strindberg’s Miss Julie directed by Peter Stormare, Beautiful Bodies, Temporary Help with Jeffrey DeMunn and mosted recently A Summer Day by Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse. She has worked with the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Shakespeare and Company, and The Berkshire Theatre Festival.

In the theatre she has directed Terence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair du Lune at the Berkshire Theatre Festival and the Obie Award winning Ashville by Lucy Thurber at the Cherry Lane Theatre with Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre. Other plays include Extremities, Moonchildren and The Batting Cage.

Karen is a lifetime member of the Actor’s Studio, is on the faculty of the theatre department of Bard College at Simon’s Rock and has taught at the Strasberg Institute in NY for New York University. She has won the Saturn Award for Best Actress (1981), The Theatre World Award (1984), an Obie Award (2012), A Spirit Award nomination for The Glass Menagerie (1986), The Creative Vision Award given by the Rhode Island Film Festival (2016), the Vanguard Award by the Vail Film Festival(2016), and the Women in Film Award by the St. Louis Film Festival (2016). She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate for her work in the Arts by the State University of NY (2010). She is on the Boards of the Berkshire International Film Festival and the Amazon Conservation Team.

Personal Life

Karen was married to actor Kale Browne from 1988 to 1998. They have a son, Nicholas Allen Browne, born in 1990. He is a professional chef. He studied at the French Culinary Institute in NYC and has worked in restaurants in Copenhagen, Denmark, in NYC and MA. He became a “Chopped Champion” in December of 2016 on the Food Network.

Since her childhood, Karen has maintained her love of textiles and design. While raising her son, she took some time away from the demands of traveling for films and created Karen Allen Fiber Arts, a knitwear and textile design company. Her studio was located in Great Barrington, MA, but has recently closed based on the demands of her directing and acting commitments. She also opened a store in 2005, which remains open and showcases small studio designers from all over the world whose work she admires, specializing in shibori dye work, embroidered and embellished garments and unusual artistic approaches to creating accessories and clothing. She divides her time between the countryside of western MA and NYC and between working in film, television and theatre. Allen is a student of Buddhism and a long time practitioner of Ashtanga Yoga.

Jhyler (talk) 01:40, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

• Hmm. You can see what happened when I tried to improve the article from my comment in the section above. When I tried to discuss it, it was crickets. Now the material you present here is problematic for several reasons, including the tone, which is more like a professional resume than encyclopedic, and fails to include references per WP:RS. I'll go back and try my version of the lede again, which is based on the article itself. That will be a start, and then we can attempt to improve the article. It would be helpful to produce links to good, reliable sources that can be accessed as references. Jusdafax 07:44, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

I have trimmed the lead to reflect that she is best know for her film work, especially the Indiana Jones movies. Yes, she has been in 40 or 50 other movies. The lead should give broad strokes. Who is Allen? Oh, yeah, she's Marion from the Indian Jones movies and she was in that other one... The "such as" list of a dozen or so other films is a POV list that doesn't seem to have anything verifiable behind it: it is an editor's point-of-view. Yes, she's done work outside of film and that shows up briefly in the article. Is it "substantial"? Again, that depends on a point of view.

Long story short: She is an actress with several dozen films in her career. Without major awards to point at, it would seem that the role in one of the highest grossing films of all time (and its sequel) is certainly worthy of top billing. - SummerPhD^v2.0 18:25, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Your opinion is noted, and I don't agree with your "trim" to the lede, which is more like a scalping. I'm curious if anyone else has a view? Jusdafax 08:45, 29 January 2017 (UTC)