Karen Chilton

Karen Chilton is a New York-based Writer-Actor whose work has been seen on the New York stage, episodic television and numerous independent films. A native of Chicago's South Side, Ms. Chilton has a M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from NYU-Tisch School of the Arts, and a B.S. degree in Economics from Bradley University. She has extensive musical training from the American Conservatory of Music (Chicago) in classical piano. She is the author of the critically-acclaimed biography of jazz 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 also is the co-author of the jazz memoir of legendary vocalist Gloria Lynne, I Wish You Love (St. Martin's Press). Her essay on blues legend Bessie Smith appears in Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing: How the Apollo Theater Shaped American Entertainment (Smithsonian Books). She is a contributor to Ain't But A Few of Us: Black Music Writers Tell Their Story, edited by author/jazz scholar & NEA JazzMaster, Willard Jenkins (Duke University Press). Her dramatic works for the stage include: Heirloom (O'Neill Nat'l Playwrights Festival -Semi-Finalist), Aphrodisiac (Or Let My People Flow!), a play with music centered on voter suppression (Finalist for the 2020 Goldberg Prize); and Convergence, winner of the New Professional Theatre Writers Festival. Her short plays Switch! and Blue Cassius have been produced in the Obie award-winning theater festivals 48 hours in Harlem & The Fire This Time. As a librettist, her recent work includes the critically-acclaimed chamber opera, The Tongue & The Lash, centered on the 1965 Cambridge debate between James Baldwin and William Buckley, Jr. as well as a new adaptation of Scott Joplin's Treemonisha; both world premieres were produced at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Ms. Chilton is the 2025 recipient of The Chicago Jazz Philharmonic's Think Big! award alongside scholar, Dr. Toni-Marie Montgomery.The gala event will include a discussion on the legacy of pianist Hazel Scott and a performance by The Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, led by Artistic Director Orbert Davis. An accomplished voiceover artist and narrator, her voice can be heard on numerous national TV/radio ad campaigns. She is the recipient of several Audie Awards and Audiofile Golden Earphones awards. Her recent narration of Honoree Fanonne Jeffers' Misbehaving At The Crossroads is nominated for a 2025 Society of Voice Artists Award. Her affiliations include membership in the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television & Radio Artists, Actors Equity Association, The Dramatists Guild, Association for the Study of African American Life and History and New York Women in Film & Television.