People should fear art, film, and theatre. This is where ideas happen. This is where somebody goes into a dark room and starts to watch something and their perspective can be completely questioned...the very seeds of activism are empathy and imagination.

- Susan Sarandon

Kathryn Blume is Co-Founder of the Lysistrata Project, the first worldwide theatrical event for peace.  She has toured The Accidental Activist – her critically acclaimed one-woman show about Lysistrata Project – to over 30 cities in the US and Canada, receiving an Austin Critics Table Award nomination. 

She is an Artistic Associate at Vermont Stage Company in Burlington, where her play Vanya/Vermont – a modern adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya – premiered in the spring of 2005.  Kathryn's new solo show, The Boycott, premiered at VSC in January, 2007 where it garnered an Outstanding Activist Award from the member organizations of the Vermont Environmental Action Conference.

Off-Broadway credits include The Seagull, Mirandolina, and The Country Wife.  Regional theater credits include Two Rooms, She Stoops to Conquer, A Child’s Christmas in Wales, Sylvia, Waiting for Godot, A Streetcar Named Desire, Amadeus, June Moon, Antigone, Much Ado About Nothing, The Baby Dance, and Our Country’s Good.  Film credits include Deception, My Mother’s Early Lovers, The Apartment, and Maybe It’s Me.

In amongst her theatrical activities, Kathryn has had essays published in the books MoveOn.org's 50 Ways To Love Your Country, Code Pink's Stop the Next War Now, Outcry - American Voices of Conscience Post 9/11, and 365 Ways to Change the World.  She has also had essays published in the weekly Seven Days and in Yes Magazine.  Kathryn has worked for organizations such as the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and Forest Watch.  She founded Earth on the Air, a nationally-syndicated, award-winning environmental and social justice radio program, and was a company member of Living Voices, touring one-woman shows about the Holocaust and immigration to communities nationwide.  She serves on the board of the Lewis Creek Association.

Kathryn co-founded The Hill Actor's Retreat Center and New Paradigms Personal Coaching Services, and has taught yoga, acting, Shakespeare, stress-reduction, and public speaking in venues across the country.  Kathryn received her BA from Yale with a self-designed degree in environmental studies and theater and is also an ordained Minister with the Universal Life Church.  She lives in Vermont with her husband Mark Nash and their emotionally needy cat Toast.

Photo Credit: Berne Broudy

COMMENTS

You have proven, so very well, that a few people adopting a small idea can change the energy of the planet. We all need to be encouraged that we as individuals can make a difference.  Thanks for your bravery.
  - Andrea Rowe, Make Art--Not War

 
Every once in a great while, one has the good fortune to run into a creative spirit as fine and unique as Kathryn Blume's. Her gifts: passion, heart, imagination and daring are rare indeed.  The woman seems to be absolutely fearless and almost supernaturally immune to despair.

 I've also seldom seen a person as hard-working or as capable of keeping her eye on the prize when mayhem descends.  Her writing is searching and engaging, fueled by a fierce commitment to her own truth and, because hers is a generous and wise spirit, her truth opens us up to the world's. This is a voice that needs to be heard.
  - Ellen McLaughlin, playwright, actor - Angels in America

 
Kathryn Blume's belief in the transformative power of the theatre shines out of her eyes.  Her shepherding of the Lysistrata Project was an act of faith in what is the best in all of us.     
  - Kathleen Chalfant, actor - Wit, Angels in America

 
Kathryn Blume is an inspiration for the American Theatre scene - a vibrant, intuitive and invigorating artisan & actor, who has dedicated her heart to our sacred craft.  What we artists most often possess is talent, humor and moxie (naturally, those are required), but if you were to toss in an additional lucid intellect, a “big-picture” vision and a joyous daring, you have the beginnings of the fascinating Blume recipe. 

Kathryn’s powers onstage and in the wings, to make a theatrical happening come to fruition, are, in fact, awesome; her producer’s mind is ever-expanding.  She’s destined to be a rattling force in the revival of our craft – and why? – because Kathryn is a theatre artist who is wide awake, and sees what the future holds for the Arts in America. 
  - Randall Stuart, Artistic Director, Upon These Boards

 
Kathy Blume commands attention with the literate quality of her writing and the legitimate passion and accessibility of her delivery.  Her characters examine injustice with the large sweeping overview of the politician as well as the minor, heartfelt and sometimes petty details of the everyday (and sometimes accidental) activist. 

With deft characterizations and dialect work, Kathy is able to populate the stage with women of widely varying backgrounds and circumstances-- and in different stages of intensity, defiance and acceptance.  She leaves audiences dazzled by imagery, rattled by accounts of unfair treatment and abuse, and happily reminded of overlooked women whose individual actions and determined voices have succeed in effecting change.
  - Joanna Parson, The Happy Hour Salon