Professor of Voice and Acting


Department of Dramatic Arts
802 Bolton Rd., Unit 1127
Storrs, Connecticut 06269-1127
Phone:  860-486-1632
Fax: 860-486-3110
Email: karen.ryker@uconn.edu

Karen S. Ryker – Professor of Voice and Acting, University of Connecticut since 2002. As a Fulbright Scholar she directed Mozart’s The Magic Flute in Dublin, Ireland. She was awarded a Special Achievement Award and several School of Fine Arts and University grants. As former Head of Graduate Acting Program at University of Wisconsin-Madison, she was awarded the UW Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Teaching and co-founded ClassAct, an L&S Dean’s Margin of Excellence program.

Artistic activity includes voice/speech/dialect coaching or consultations for over 70 productions including Connecticut Repertory Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, American Players Theatre, Madison Repertory Theatre, Shakespeare and Company, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Acting credits include theaters in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Texas and in commercials, industrials, voiceovers. Directing credits include some 40 productions in educational and professional venues in Connecticut, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Iowa and Texas.

Research activity involves production of vocally violent sounds for stage and her articles have been published in The Journal of Voice, the Voice and Speech Review, and in The Complete Voice and Speech Workout Book. Karen is a member of Actors Equity Association and the Voice and Speech Trainers Association, and served VASTA as Board Member, and as Associate Editor of the Voice and Speech Review. She previously taught at Clarke College, University of Texas, St. Edward’s University and Notre Dame University.