Please visit Karel at King Watts Talent Agency.
Karel Sloane-Boekbinder - Actress, Artist, Administrator Educator, Author, Activist
Karel Sloane-Boekbinder, is a playwright, author, actor, filmmaker and painter. She is assistant producer for the Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans, responsible for theater and video production at the Ashé in Central City New Orleans, She is the administrator of the Cultural Crossroads program at Jefferson Parish Arts Society. Add in painting,writing creative nonfiction and poetry, writing and performing in both stage and film productions - Karel is one busy woman!Karel has been a theatre professional for over 21 years. At Ashé CAC, Karel assists with stage management, all aspects of assistant producing, and, arts instruction. Current performance work can be seen in the Spike Lee film "Miracle at St. Anna" (as "Herb's Wife,") the Ashé CAC original production “13 Lessons” (a choral drama about adult literacy) and in monthly improv performances New Orleans at the Voodoo Lounge with NOLA Playback Theatre.
Karel is one of 16 New Orleans artists collaborating with internationally known author and playwright Eve Ensler on "Swimming Up Stream," which premiered during V-Day's "V to the10th" celebration in New Orleans, April, 2008.
Videographer
An important contribution has been her work editing and shooting video footage. Background video projected behind performers on stage, interludes and other video enhancements have been featured in nearly all recent Ashé stage productions
She's also the videographer for our own efforts, both as editor and behind the camera, on the Save our Swamps PSA.
As a filmmaker, Kare and I create works through our company Flapjacks Lincoln Productions
Early Work
Karel was awarded USA Today All-Star Academic Team, 2003 for her film J CAESAR.
J CAESAR(“a full-fledged twister,” Imagine News) is a film about gangs, drugs and guns. The theme is violence in the modern age, and its impact on children. The language is Shakespeare. This Caesar wears sweat pants and carries a 22. He sends emails to Octavius and listens to rap music. The conspirators cover the city with graffiti, demanding, "Shall we stand under one man's awe? Brutus, Speak, Strike, Redress!" Portia doesn't commit suicide. She's shot by accident. J CAESAR was featured as a workshop at The Sixth Annual Connecticut Conference on Multicultural Education, sponsored by The Connecticut State Department of Education, The University of Hartford-Education Division and The Connecticut Chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education. J CAESAR had its world premiere as a featured event of The International Festival of Arts and Ideas. J CAESAR is a film that was made on location in several New Haven, Connecticut neighborhoods by youth, many of whom know what it's like to face gang violence in reality.
Karel Sloane, a 2003 magna cum laude Loyola graduate, was awarded the American Art Therapy Association Research Committee Award . This award is granted for her submission “Research in Creativity: Comparing Physiological Processes of Art and Language.”
Fast forward to:
As an Artist Educator, Karel was one of Maybelline’s Inspiring Confidence Through Education Contest for PEOPLE Magazine winners, 2006 for her work with JPAS Cultural Crossroads.That program won the Big Easy Arts Education Award for 2011. At JPAS, Karel writes grants and directs Stage Without a Theatre and Cultural Crossroads. Karel is one of 61 educators and arts administrators working with the Louisiana Department of Education on cross-curricula instructional materials. Several of Karel’s lessons have been selected by the Kennedy Center for inclusion in their current initiative highlighting Louisiana Culture. Karel was a conference presenter at the 2008 NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development conference, "Arts Education--To What End?" and received The American Art Therapy Association Research Committee Award for her original research analyzing physiological responses related to the art making process:
In 2010 she received the Arts Education Award for her Cultural Crossroads program with the Jefferson Performing Arts Society.