Karen Kondazian
Karen Kondazian is an actor. In 2004 she was honored with an Ovation award for her performance as legendary opera diva Maria Callas in the award-winning eight-month run of Master Class at theFountain Theatre.
She is considered the foremost interpreter of Tennessee Williams' leading ladies in Los Angeles theatre. Williams himself pronounced her portrayal of Serafina in The Rose Tattoo as "staggeringly beautiful" and for that performance she won the L. A. Drama Critics Circle Award.
For the Fountain Kondazian has played Maxine in The Night of The Iguana (Back Stage West Garland award) and Lady in Orpheus Descending (Ovation Award nomination); she has also played Alexandra del Lago (opposite Ed Harris) in Sweet Bird of Youth and Mrs. Wire in Vieux Carre (L.A. Weekly award).
Kondazian has appeared with Richard Chamberlain in Richard II (Ahmanson), with Stacy Keach in Hamlet (Mark Taper Forum) and in Mark Rydell's TNT movie, James Dean.
A lifetime member of the Actors Studio, Kondazian has studied with Lee Strasberg and Jose Quintero, and has authored a book titledThe Actor¹s Encyclopedia of Casting Directors.
In 2005 Kondazian returned toNew York to star in the INTAR Theatre's Off Broadway production of "Kissing Fidel," a new play written by Cuban playwrightEduardo Machado and directed by Michael John Garcé at The Kirk Theatre. 'Kissin Fidel" is an outrageous comedy/drama set in a Miami funeral home. The matriarch is dead and the exiled family is in mourning. Tempers explode when the deceased matriarch¹s grandson announces that he is returning to Cuba to kiss and forgive Fidel Castro. The show is inappropriate for children under 17.
Sources
- Karen Kondazian Stars in Off-Broadway Production of New Play 'Kissing Fidel', LOS ANGELES