Bringing Broadway to Santa Fe - SPOTLIGHT on Kristie (Hannum) Karsen, C'78

by Jeff Ward-Bailey (C'09), guest feature-writer

You know how with some people, when you're talking with them on the phone you don't really get a good sense of what they're like? My brother Steve, for example, is like that: he's an energetic, active, intensely interesting guy, but on the phone his voice is flat, emotionless, almost monotone. It's just not a good analogue to the way he is in real life.

Kristie Karsen, however, is not one of those people.

We'd never met before our interview, so she doesn't know me from Adam, but as soon as we begin talking, her voice just lights up. With almost no prompting on my part, she tells me all about her background, shares stories from her dance and musical theater career, and gushes about her most recent trip to Prin. Her voice is enthusiastic, warm, approachable, confident -- and those who know and have worked with Kristie assure me that she's just the same in real life. It's no wonder she's had such resounding success in the performing arts, a career field that's notorious for being both competitive and difficult to break in to.

Kristie begins our conversation by telling me about her background in the performing arts. Her training, she says, was broad, running from dance, to singing, to acting. She got into dance at an early age, thanks to a mother who enrolled her in "all kinds of" dance classes. It was when she joined a ballet company at age 12 as a junior member, though, that her love of dance really blossomed. For the next three years, she danced in shows such as the Nutcracker, after which she left the company and joined her high school drama club. There, her focus shifted as she began acting and taking voice lessons, with an emphasis on musical theater roles. "I loved acting," Kristie says. "There was this dance thread in my life, and I was so grateful to be able to add acting and singing to that."

When Kristie headed to Elsah for college, she knew she wanted to be a drama major. But Principia's performing arts curriculum when she was a student looked vastly different from the way it does today. "There was nothing for dancers," Kristie remembers. "There was no dance department at all." She forged ahead, though, and it was largely due to her presence that Prin staged its first-ever musical during her sophomore year, Cole Porter's "Anything Goes," in which Kristie played the lead character of Reno Sweeney. And she continued pursuing the performing arts by constructing her own course of study. This brought her to New York City for a quarter to study dance and acting.

I think a lot of college students would be intimidated at the prospect of going to the Big Apple to study on their own. It's pretty clear that this was not the case for Kristie, though: she tells me how she immediately began making connections in the city, and was even about to study under the likes of Peter Gennero, a famous dancer in 1950s movies such as "The Pajama Game" and "Bells Are Ringing," and who later broke into choreography with work on "West Side Story," "Fiorello!," and "Mr. President," among others.

When Kristie came back to Prin after her quarter in New York, she not only played the lead in Principia's production of "Bye Bye Birdie," but did the choreography aswell. But her time in New York had shown her that that was where her future lay. "As soon as I graduated I high-tailed it back there," she laughs. Drawing on her strong background in dance, acting, and singing, she continued to meet people, and soon began acting in musicals and commercials, what she refers to as her "bread and butter" roles. The first major productions she was a part of included "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" and "A Chorus Line," the Woody Allen film "Zelig," and pre-Broadway workshops of "Merrily We Roll Along" and "All-Girl Band."

Left, Karsen as Val in A Chorus Line

At this point in our conversation, Kristie pauses. "New York is a small world," she tells me. This is surprising to me, and I tell her so: isn't the city overflowing with starry-eyed young actors and actresses waiting for their big break? "Sure," she tells me, "but once you get in you go from job to job. The same people work over and over; you just get known." Her voice becomes serious. "There's no reason [for aspiring actors] to be afraid. If you have your skill set up, you will work."

Kristie worked in New York for ten years after graduating from Prin. She then moved to Chicago, where she spent a three-year stint doing commercials and musical theater -- including a touring version of "South Pacific" -- before moving again, this time to Los Angeles. "I was curious; that city's got such a draw," she confesses. "It was another place to act." 

But once she got to LA, instead of continuing her acting career Kristie found herself drawn into the business aspect of the performing arts. "I always thought I'd have an aptitude for it," she laughs, "although I'd never done anything on the business side of things." During her time in LA, Kristie began writing for the stage and working as an assistant to executive producers, further expanding her understanding of the performing arts world.

Today, Kristie makes her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She originally moved there to take a job on the staff at the National Dance Institute, where she taught classes in jazz and tap dance and musical theater, as well as teaching voice lessons. But at one point, she tells me, she realized that there weren't very many musicals being done in Santa Fe. "This is such a music-loving town," she sighs, "but the musicals that were being done were all with kids. Unfortunately theater is just not well supported here, yet."

So Kristie aimed to change that. After almost four years at the National Dance Institute, she founded the Santa Fe REP, a company focused on creating professional performances starring teens and adults. "We want to elevate the quality of work that's being done here," says Kristie, who now serves as the company's artistic director. "We want to bring awareness and support to the theater." She started meeting with actors and directors in Santa Fe, gauging interest in the performing arts and drumming up enthusiasm for musical productions.

For its inaugural production in October 2009, Santa Fe REP staged "Anything Goes," the same Cole Porter musical that Kristie starred in as a sophomore at Principia. "People loved it," she says. "They were so grateful, we actually had to turn people away because there wasn't any seating left. ...It was so encouraging, because it felt like it proved my premise: If we do good musical theater, people will come!"

Right, publicity photo from Santa Fe REP's "Anything Goes"

And audience members aren't the only people whose interest has been piqued by the Santa Fe REP: Kristie says highly talented actors are being attracted to the company, as well. To that end, the REP's next performance will be the Stephen Sondheim musical "Company," which Kristie describes as "a darker, a more adventurous production" dealing with problems of relationships. "This town has hardly ever seen Sondheim," Kristie says. "Doing 'Company' will take this to a whole new level." She's currently hip-deep in preparations for that show -- rehearsals start this month -- in addition to preparing a production for next May that will celebrate female playwrights and directors in Santa Fe.

Kristie's connection with Principia remains strong these days, too. She became involved with the Principia College Alumni Dance Retreat after Emily Ward, the program's coordinator, stayed at her house during a visit to the Santa Fe opera."We had so much in common!" Kristie gushes. Emily and Christine Dunbar, another coordinator, invited Kristie to teach jazz, tap, and musical theater classes for the summer dance intensive. Her contributions to the program turned out to be so invaluable that Kristie was invited to teach a musical theater workshop at the college, which she did just last weekend. "I treated it [the workshop] like a real audition," she explains. Not only did each of the students perform songs of his or her own choice, but Kristie also gave groups of them a number from the musical "Chicago" to learn and perform on the spot.

Above, Karsen hamming it up as a pop diva in the Alumni Dance Production 2010

Plans are still tentative, but Kristie says she hopes to be able to continue visiting Principia to keep teaching and giving workshops. And, she says, she loved this summer's Alumni Dance Production and can't wait to be a part of the next one!

As our conversation winds to a close, Kristie finishes telling me about her plans for the future -- both at Principia and in Santa Fe -- and I'm dazzled. I don't dance -- I don't even know anything about dance, really -- but the enthusiasm and joy in her voice is so evident that it's no mystery why she's enjoyed such success in the performing arts. And it's equally clear that as she continues to spread her love of dance and theater, that spark will keep inspiring others, as well.