During his tenure as Vice Consul at the German Consulate in New York, Stefan and Anna Schlueter and the Kohlers became great friends. When Stefan Schlueter became German Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, he twice invited Karen to the Caribbean for concerts and master classes. On both occasions, Karen wore gowns by renowned Trinidadian fashion designer, Claudia Pegus, several [...]
In March of 2011, Karen received a month-long fellowship as Artist-in-Residence at the Global Arts Village/Center for Culture and Consciousness in New Delhi, India.Here she developed and taught a new master class, Beyond the Beautiful Voice: The Art of Performance, employing her own methodology in the art of stagecraft for the first time. At the conclusion of her formal residency, Karen [...]
On March 7, 2010 Karen returns to the political cabaret of her Berlin roots and flexes her revolutionary artist muscle in Foreign Currency: Political Cabaret for Our Time, at Joe's Pub in NYC with Doug Oberhamer (piano) and Gregory Chudzik (bass). The show was originally conceived for the BKA Theater in Berlin in 2005 as an homage to Marlene [...]
On June 10 2008, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the German Forum, Karen was invited to perform for the Forum at the Dance New Amsterdam (DNA) Theater in NYC alongside German-born Actress-Singer Micaela Leon and Australian newcomer Kim Smith in It's All a Swindle/Alles Schwindel: An Evening of Weimar Berlin Cabaret, with pianist Uli Geissendoerfer. As a result of [...]
Little Death: Songs of Coming and Going, a daring and provocative musical performance exploring the erotic intersections between sex and death, debuted Off-Broadway at the Zipper Factory Theater on October 8, 2008 and ran to October 28. In the wake of high praise from critics and audiences alike, the show was extended from November 5 to 18, 2008. Known [...]
Karen and Robert M. Kohler endow the world’s first cabaret scholarship, the Peter E. Kohler Scholarship in Cabaret Performance at Long Island University, Greenvale, NY where the couple met as college students in 1982 and married in 1988. It is named for her late father-in-law who, as a musician and former American soldier, introduced her to the music of [...]
As part of her continuing effort to nurture the European cabaret arts in New York City, Karen and Robert Kohler conceived and produced New York's first festival for European cabaret, Kabarett Fête, from January 23-27, 2007. Nine performers from seven countries delivered the European cabaret songbook in the city's first cabaret festival devoted to the European cabaret arts. These [...]
2005 - 2007 had Karen traveling and flexing her interpretative muscles in multiple genre. She took her jazz standards and Boswell Sisters songbook (which she's been covering since the mid-90s) to the A-Trane and the BKA Theater in Berlin, her family home. She created a new musical theater tribute for the Jermyn Street Theater in London called Speak Low: [...]
Debut of Vienna to Weimar with KT Sullivan at Cafe Sabarsky at the Neue Galerie, NYC with Jed Distler on piano. Both ladies were dressed in gowns. An encore run occurred at the Sabarsky in March of the following with Karen donning her signature tux. Over the years this popular duo show received critical praise and awards and was [...]
With the vision to further the European cabaret arts, Karen brought together a number of European-born cabaret artists living in New York City in the spring of 2003 under the banner of Kabarett Kollektif. The group's debut performance occurred at the venerable Duplex Cabaret with musical direction by Doyle Newmyer and featured Germans Karen Kohler, Theo Bleckmann and Dirk [...]
