2022-24: Pochsy IV
Karen Hines, Pochsy IV, Keep Frozen Productions at Theatre Network. Photo by Gary Mulcahey.
Pochsy IV. Posted on December 18, 2023 by Liz Nicholls 12th Night.
‘No other satirist captures so fearlessly, and with such original panache, the contemporary drift towards a kind of late-capitalist chaos the way Karen Hines does. Pochsy, the toxic and euphoric charmer we first met many Fringes ago, poisoned, poisonous, and attached to an IV pole, came back to us this year, to open the Theatre Network season. And with her, wrapped in her signature miasma of good cheer and malice, a vision of cosmic disintegration into absurdity, or oblivion. In Hines’ writing, and a performance of lethal sweetness, this is realized in a veritable barrage of capitalist slogans, self-help mantras, market-driven clichés, religious pieties, cultural complacencies…. Queasy, disturbing, and riotous.‘ Read the full 12th night review here.
Developed at the Banff Centre and the Play the Fool Festival, 2022
Premiered at the High Performance Rodeo, 2023
Mainstage at Theatre Network, 2023
More productions and publication upcoming.
All the Little Animals I Have Eaten 2017-2023
In All the Little Animals I Have Eaten, we follow Frankie, a sleep-deprived grad student on the toughest shift of her life in an all-female condo whose questionable billboards promise, “A Condo of One’s Own.” Featuring the ghosts of Sylvia Plath, Frida Khalo, Anne Sexton, Qiu Miaojin, and Virginia Woolf, ATLA is a study in neoliberalism, precarity, real estate and hope.
‘Hines’ wild mind shines.’ – Stephen Hunt, The Half Step, Calgary
‘You won’t have seen anything quite like All The Small Animals I Have Eaten, the play that’s now running in the Shadow Theatre season. And because it’s by Karen Hines, a brilliant original of a satirist, you shouldn’t miss it.‘ Liz Nicholls 12th Night
All the Little Animals I Have Eaten leans hard into the absurd and the imagined, an intentionally baffling show obfuscating its real message behind rapid-fire dialogue. This is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas if it were written by Aaron Sorkin. – Justin Bell, Edmonton Journal
2020 Nightwood/Crow’s Theatre
CANCELLED SADLY, DUE TO COVID 19Toronto production starring (L to R) Amanda Corder, Belinda Corpuz, Lucy Hill, Amy Rutherford, Zorana Sadiq; Written, Directed by Karen Hines, Designed by Gillian Gallow, Bonnie Beecher, Richard Feren
Previous Productions: 2017 High Performance Rodeo, One Yellow Rabbit, Calgary. Directed by Blake Brooker, staged by Denise Clarke. Starring Georgina Beaty, Nadien Chiu, Denise Clarke, Ellen Close
AWARDS AND CITATIONS:
- 2023 Five Sterling Award nominations for Shadow Theatre’s Production, Direction, Performance, Ensemble, Direction, Choreography
- 2017 Carol Bolt Award Finalist – Best New Canadian Play, Playwrights Guild of Canada
- 2016 Enbridge Award for Playwriting
Read the Shadow Theatre https://12thnight.ca/2023/03/18/the-dizzying-optic-of-all-the-animals-i-have-eaten-a-new-karen-hines-satire-at-shadow-a-review/review here.
Crawlspace 2015-2019
Based on a true story:
Hines explores the darker side of real estate in CRAWLSPACE, a comic, Kafka-esque monologue that snakes through the brutal battleground of real estate, decorative twig orbs and the state of the human soul. Now being adapted as a feature film, CRAWLSPACE is a darkly comedic tale that moves past ‘cautionary’ as it unearths the darker side of property ownership.
Savagely funny. – NOW Magazine
Like a Mike Holmes episode scripted by Franz Kafka.– Globe & Mail
2017: Soulpepper, Toronto; Boca del Lupo, Vancouver; PushOFF, Vancouver
2016: Wordfest, Calgary
2015: Debajehumujig Creation Centre, Manitoulin Island
2015: Videofag Premiere, Toronto
2015-2020 Private homes and studio spaces, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Manitoulin Island, Manhattan.
AWARDS AND CITATIONS:
- Dora Nomination for Best New Play
- Playwrights Guild Carol Bolt Award finalist – Best New Play
- Dora Nomination for Outstanding Production (Videofag in Association with Keep Frozen)
- Dora Nomination for Direction (Sandra Balcovske, John Turner)
- Dora Nomination for Lighting (Patrick Lavender)
- Dora Award for Set (Patrick Lavender)
Directed by Sandra Balcovske and John Turner; Dramaturgy by Blake Brooker and Sandra Balcovske; Commissioned and Artistically Produced by William Ellis and Jordan Tannahill (Videofag), Executive Producer, Kendra Bator. (Presented in association with Keep Frozen.)
Now a CBC Podcast (PlayMe) and being developed as a feature film (Crawlspace!) through Telefilm
Drama: Pilot Episode 2012-14
Set in a stylish Western oil town in a post-boom boom, Drama is multi-character comedy that parodies, embraces then vivisects the Netflix mode of drama, drawing connections between the 44-minute television hour, pregnant oil wives, blazing ghosts of men and girls and the fall of a sparrow in this Night Sea Journey of mind, body and soul.
Hines is superb at depicting in a few words the despair of people who feel forced to live lives bereft of meaning … I can’t imagine a person in the Western world who would be left untouched by the great drama of souls Hines creates here. (Alex Rettie, Alberta Views)
- 2012: Alberta Theatre Projects, PlayRites 2012 – Directed by Blake Brooker; 2014: Public staged readings, Factory Theatre, Directed by Iris Turcott (WIRED)
- 2016: Soulpepper readings directed by Guillermo Verdecchia
AWARDS AND CITATIONS:
- Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama: Finalis
- Betty Mitchell Award: Best New Play
- Calgary Critics’ Award: Best New Play
- Official Jury Selection, Neue Theaterstücke aus Kanada: Nat’l Competition
(DRAMA: THE PILOT EPISODES IS now a podcast, streaming on Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts, or at our own limegreenkitten.ca.)
Pochsy Unplugged
A cabaret-style selection of the company’s chosen favourites from the Pochsy trilogy. Stories and songs from the nastiest little minx this side of Alexanderplatz.
“Karen Hines’s Pochsy, the crown princess of narcissism, has become one of the little gems of Canadian theatre … an unforgettable character steeped in equal measures of honey and acid.” (Toronto Star)
- Written and performed by Karen Hines; Directed by Sandra Balcovske and John Turner; Score by Greg Morrison with Karen Hines; Music performed live by Greg Morrison
- 2010 University of Toronto, Literature for Our Times Series
- 2008 Joe’s Pub N.Y.C. (The Canada Night)
- 2005: World Stage Festival
- Theatre Passe Muraille (late night cabaret)
- Variations performed at Universty of Lethbridge (2006), York University (2007)
Hello… Hello (A Romantic Satire)
This play with songs probes the sweet, sexual, and suicidal impulses that thread through a century of escapist Hollywood films, consumeristic urges and romantic desire. An affectionate but unforgiving deconstruction of that most escapist of entertainments, the boy-meets girl love story.
“Exquisitely crafted … seamlessly stylish and intellectually provocative. (Globe & Mail)
- Script and lyrics by Karen Hines
- Score composed by Greg Morrison with Hines
- Music performed live by Greg Morrison
- 1998: The Space – Keep Frozen/Pochsy Productions
- 1999: Factory Theatre Studio, Toronto – Pochsy Productions in association with Factory Theatre – directed by Chris Earle, produced by Naomi Campbell with David Jansen, Steven Morel, Teresa Pavlinek, and Hines and Morrison.
- 2003: Produced by Tarragon Theatre, Toronto. Directed by Chris Earle, with Aurora Browne, Steven Morel, Peter Oldring, and Hines and Morrison.
- 2003: Readings, Steppenwolf Theatre Company
- 2010: Kill Your Television, Edmonton (Best Production, Sterlings)
AWARDS AND CITATIONS:
- Chalmers nomination: outstanding new play
- 5 Dora nominations (Pochsy Productions): outstanding new play, production, direction, score, performance (Hines)
- Dora nomination (Hines & Morrison): outstanding new musical
- 4 Canadian Comedy Award nominations: outstanding new play, performance (Hines), score (Morrison) and direction (Earle)
- Winner: Alberta Writers Guild Award for Drama
Citizen Pochsy: Head Movements of a Long-Haired Girl
Set in the waiting room at an audit from hell, Citizen Pochsy takes a labyrinthine tour through the incomparable mind of Canadian cult cutie Pochsy. Take a peek through her thick-lashed eyes as she grapples with karmic reckoning, ponders the future of the human soul, and marvels at the wonders of a market-driven world. Sort of like a chat with the girl next door only … more complex.
A brilliant piece of play construction … Karen Hines is an astonishing artist both as writer and performer. (Edmonton Journal)
- Written and performed by Karen Hines; Directed by John Turner: Score by Greg Morrison with Karen Hines: Music performed live by Greg morrison
- 2003: Magnetic North Festival, Ottawa;
- One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo, Calgary;
- Kaboom Festival, Edmonton; Ruby Slippers at The Firehall, Vancouver
- 2004: One Yellow Rabbit’s Big Secret Theatre, Calgary
- (Citizen Pochsy has not played in Toronto)
AWARDS AND CITATIONS:
- Governor General’s Literary Award Finalist in “The Pochsy Plays”
- Betty Mitchell Award nomination: performance
- Winner: Alberta Writers Guild Award for Drama in “The Pochsy Plays”
Oh, baby (Pochsy’s Adventures by the Sea)
On vacation from her job packing mercury, Pochsy trips lightly across a beach of slag, splashes in silver-lined waters, and communes with 2-foot minnows. From her perch atop a mammoth seashell, Pochsy delivers a Shirley-Valentine-on-ecstasy meditation on this, our horribly beautiful world.
Pochsy is a must-see, a blend of charm and vitriol who traipses blithely over mercuy-traced waters … she skewers middle-class aspirations and consumer obsessions with poison-tipped arrows and relentless slings. (Eye Weekly)
- Written and performed by Karen Hines; Directed by and written with the collaboration of Sandra Balcovske; Score by Greg Morrison with Karen Hines; Music performed live by Greg Morrison
- 1993: Fringe Festivals: Sudbury, Toronto, Edmonton
- 1994: Factory Theatre Studio, Toronto
- Vancouver East Cultural Centre (Women In View)
AWARDS AND CITATIONS:
- Chalmers nomination: outstanding new play
- 5 Dora nominations: production, direction, set, lighting, performance
- Dora award: performance
- Governor General’s Literary Award Finalist in”The Pochsy Plays”
- Winner: Alberta Writers Guild Award for Drama in “The Pochsy Plays”
Pochsy’s Lips
Alone in her hospital room, Pochsy muses on her job at mercury packers, dances with her i.v. pole, fever-dreams about her doctor, and transforms complex consumer obsessions into gossamer fantasies. Black comedy. Not for children.
Imagine Greek Tragedy by Betty Boop. (Montreal Gazette)
- Written and performed by Karen Hines; Directed by and written with the collaboration of Sandra Balcovske; Score by Greg Morrison, David Hines and Karen Hines
- 1992: Fringe Festivals: Orlando, Montreal, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria
- Poor Alex Theatre (Toronto)
- 1993: Festival of Wrack and Ruin: Alice’s Fourth Floor (N.Y.C.)
- 1994: Minneapolis Fringe, Mixed Blood Theatre, Denver International Women’s Theatre Festival
- 1995: Actors Theatre of Louisville, Dallas Theatre Centre
- 2010 Beme Theatre, Munich
AWARDS AND CITATIONS:
- Dora Nomination: Performance
- Governor General’s Literary Award Finalist in”The Pochsy Plays”
- Winner: Alberta Writers Guild Award for Drama in “The Pochsy Plays”
**
AWARDS AND CITATIONS COLLECTED: KEEP FROZEN AND HINES
- Finalist, Siminovitch Prize in Playwriting
- Finalist, Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama: Drama: Pilot Episode
- Finalist, Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama: The Pochsy Plays
- Winner, Alberta Writers Guild Award: Crawlspace
- Five Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations for Crawlspace: Best Play, Production (Videofag), Direction (Sandra Balcovske), Lighting (Patrick Lavender), Set (Lavender). (Dora Award for Patrick Lavender’s Set Design)
- Winner, Alberta Writers Guild Award: Drama: Pilot Episode
- Winner, Calgary Critics Award, Best New Play: Drama: Pilot Episode
- Winner, Betty Mitchell Award, Best New Play: Drama: Pilot Episode
- Dora Mavor Moore Nomination for Best New Musical: Hello…Hello at Tarragon Theatre
- Five Dora Mavor Moore Award Nominations for Hello…Hello at Factory Theatre: Performance (Hines) Best Production (Pochsy Productions in Association with Factory), Score (Greg Morrison), Direction (Chris Earle
- Five Dora Mavor Moore Award Nominations for Oh, baby: Performance (Hines) Best Production (Pochsy Productions with Factory Theatre), Direction (Balcovske), Set, Lighting (Michel Charbonneau) (Dora Award for Hines’ Performance.)
- Dora Mavor Moore Award Award Nomination: Performance (Hines) in Pochsy’s Lips
- Winner, Alberta Writers Guild Award: The Pochsy Plays
- Finalist, Chalmers Award for New Canadian Play: Hello…Hello
- Finalist, Chalmers Award for New Canadian Play: Oh, baby
- Finalist, Playwrights Guild Carol Bolt Award, Best New CanadianPlay: All the Little Animals I Have Eaten
- Winner, Enbridge Award for Best New Canadian Play: All the Little Animals I Have Eaten
- Finalist, Playwrights Guild Carol Bolt Award, Best New Canadian Play: Crawlspace