Karl Allen

Karl's been working in theater in NYC for nearly 25 years. He got his first paycheck hanging a new lighting grid into the black-box theater at the HB Playwrights Foundation in 1998 in the West Village, later worked on the renovations of the Suzanne Werner-Wright theater at Sarah Lawrence College, and many more before finding a home at PS122 as the Technical Director from 2006-2008. He returned to PS122 in 2016 as the Production Manager to finish off the long-delayed renovation project before the building reopened in 2017 and the organization re-emerged as Performance Space New York. He was also at The Flea Theater in a similar role as the Director of Production and Facilities. In addition to working on all in-house productions he was also instrumental in finalizing the construction process of their brand new building, overseeing the final phases of the process to get the Certificate of Operation for the building.

He was most recently in a similar position at a very different kind of arts organization, Mercury Store, which is in a recently renovated warehouse in Gowanus, Brooklyn that’s been rebuilt from the ground up into a high-end workshop and residency space. He spent two years working with the architects, construction team, vendors, and artistic staff to ensure the workability of this unique space that is designed to nurture the next generation of theater arts and artists. He worked in concert with consultants from Charcoalblue and Masque Sound, along with the architect and construction company to ensure that the spaces would achieve their goal of supporting both the mission and maximizing the potential for rental opportunities.