Karen Chilton

Librettist Playwright Lyricist
she/her/hers

KAREN CHILTON is a New York-based Writer/Actor whose work has been seen on stage, episodic television and numerous independent films. A native of Chicago’s South Side, Ms. Chilton received her M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing at NYU-Tisch School of the Arts, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Bradley University. Additionally, she studied classical piano at the American Conservatory of Music (Chicago).

She is the author of the critically-acclaimed biography of jazz/classical pianist HAZEL SCOTT: The Pioneering Journey of a Jazz Pianist from Café Society to Hollywood to HUAC (University of Michigan Press) which she has recently adapted for the screen. She is co-author of I WISH YOU LOVE, the jazz memoir of legendary vocalist Gloria Lynne (St. Martin’s Press). She is a contributor to the 75thanniversary commemorative edition of AIN’T NOTHING LIKE THE REAL THING: The Apollo Theater and American Entertainment with an essay on blues legend, Bessie Smith. She also contributed to the newly-published anthology AIN’T BUT A FEW OF US: Black Music Writers Tell Their Stories, edited by NEA JazzMaster, Willard Jenkins (Duke University Press).

Her dramatic works for the stage include: AFRODISIAC (Or Let My People Flow!) (Nominated for New York Theatre Workshop-Golden & Ruth Harris Commission; Finalist for the 2020 Goldberg Prize-NYU Tisch); HEIRLOOM (Semi-Finalist-O’Neill Nat’l Playwrights Conference 2019); and CONVERGENCE (Winner of the New Professional Theatre’s Writers Festival). Her short plays, BLUE CASSIUS and SWITCH! have been produced in the Obie award-winning theater festivals,48 Hours In Harlem and The Fire This Time Theatre Festival.

As a librettist, her re-imagining of Scott Joplin’s seminal opera, TREEMONISHA along with her collaborative partner, pianist/composer, Damien Sneed, had its world premiere at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis opening the 2023-24 season. Their critically-acclaimed chamber opera, THE TONGUE & THE LASH, inspired by the 1965 debate between James Baldwin and William Buckley, Jr., commissioned by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, was part of the 2021 New Works, Bold Voices! Festival.

Ms. Chilton is an AUDIE-award winning narrator and voiceover artist whose voice can be heard on dozens of audiobooks and national tv/radio ad campaigns.

Her affiliations include membership in the SAG/AFTRA, AEA, ASCAP, The Dramatists Guild, Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), The Toni Morrison Society, and New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT). 

www.karenchilton.com